


Satellite

by roymustang (SpicyReyes)



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Ed Becomes His Own Dad, F/M, Family Feels, Gen, M/M, Multi, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, not a redo fic actually, step it up hohenheim, y'all should have seen this coming tbqh
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-11-18
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2019-08-25 10:06:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 27
Words: 59,731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16659134
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpicyReyes/pseuds/roymustang
Summary: A rogue alchemist, desperate to restore the alchemy of the famous Fullmetal Alchemist, pushes Truth into playing a new game - one that has Edward Elric waking up on the floor of his house where a transmuted abomination should have been, just in time to save his younger self and brother. He might have a chance to do everything again, now, though...He would never hold anything but bitterness for the title of 'dad,' but maybe an older brother could make things better.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> are you surprised that im writing this? because im not  
> i literally woke up at 2am this morning wide awake like "what if blackkat's 'backslide' and batsutousai's 'Reverti Ad Praeteritum' had an ugly baby' and. here ya go, kids  
> adult ed is called ed right up until the end, where he renames himself, and he will be known only by that name for the remainder of the fic  
> (like i said, heavily backslide insp. lmao)  
> this is my 3rd fma fic and i really cant afford another wip but!! doin it anyway!! here ya go!!  
> also. title is a reference to "cecilia and the satellite" by andrew mchanon in the wilderness

If he lived through this, Mustang was going to get a fucking earful.

The flash of a transmutation alerted him to the rogue alchemist’s latest move, and he sprung back a few steps just in time to watch a series of jagged spikes shoot up from the ground where he’d been standing.

“Ed!”

“I know!” Edward called back immediately, even though he knew the answer would frustrate Alphonse beyond measure. His brother had never quite gotten over his desperate need for Ed to stay away from any situation he could have once handled easily with alchemy, as though a man who’d punched a god to death would be in any way disadvantaged in a hand-to-hand fight.

This alchemist was a pain in the ass, though, especially since he wouldn’t  _ shut up.  _

“Elric!” He called out, apparently deciding it was time for another attempt at his insane ramble. “The Fullmetal Alchemist never should have stopped! I know what you did, what you sacrificed!”

“What of it?” Ed spat back, dodging the finger-like rising from the earth to try and grab him.

“If you would just stay still!” the alchemist cried. “I don’t want to hurt you! I want to  _ restore  _ you!”

What?

Ed was so startled at the declaration, he paused, hesitating for a fraction of a second.

Earth sealed itself around his feet in that instant, and he was trapped.

“Excellent,” the alchemist breathed out, and then there was static, and the sound of Al desperately crying out his name.

The flash of a transmutation lit up in his face, and he closed his eyes against it, only to open them in a familiar hell he’d hoped he’d never see again.

“No,” he breathed out, turning around to catch sight of the other two bodies present: the alchemist they’d been after, and a featureless white child’s form.

Truth. 

“I came for his alchemy,” the madman alchemist was saying.

“Stop!” Ed called, running toward them, grabbing the alchemist by the front of the shirt. “Stop this! I made my choice, let it go!”

The alchemist ignored him completely, leaning to the side to talk around him. “Take anything from me,” he practically begged. “Our country doesn’t need me, it needs its hero.” 

“You don’t even  _ know  _ me!”

“Please,” the alchemist continued. 

A cold, cruel laugh was his answer.

Ed turned, looking over his shoulder at the form of Truth, its bright tormentor’s grin splitting blank white cheeks. 

“His alchemy?” its endlessly echoing voice cooed. “He gave me his gate. I let him because its worth much more than a soul. How do you intend to pay for it?”

“Anything,” the alchemist begged again. “Please,  _ please _ , just give him the power to fix things. I...” The alchemist dug out and offered an item, small and pathetic for all the horror it contained. “I have a stone!” 

“Fix what? Where did you get that?” Ed demanded, before dropping the alchemist and rounding on Truth. “I don’t want it. I don’t ever want to be here again. I just want to get back to my brother.”

He never should have spoken. 

“Oh?” Truth asked. “That can be your toll, then.”

Before Ed could ask what that meant, the gate behind him opened, and its grasping arms dragged him in once again. 

  
  


He opened his eyes to a dark room, filled with the scent of blood.

He recognized this ceiling.

_ No,  _ he thought, scrambling to sit up.

Sure enough, he was in the center of a transmutation array. Not at the edge - the  _ center.  _ And, on the ground in front of him, he was staring dead into the wide and terrified eyes of a child.

Of  _ himself.  _

His child self fell backward, reaching to the stump of his leg as the tissue dissolved into the air, being eaten away by the transmutation’s rebound. 

His arms were both still there, though, which meant…

Ed acted more on instinct than thought, clapping his hands together, relieved when a once-familiar energy crackled under his palms. His hands slammed down on the ground, and he didn’t even have to look for where Al was to tether the transmutation.

Truth seemed like it was waiting for him, that damned grin bright as ever. “Welcome back.”

“Fuck you,” Ed spat back. “What have you done?”

“You should be grateful,” Truth told him. “You might finally be able to fix your terrible mistakes. You’ve made a lot of them, haven’t you, Edward?”

Ed glared in reply. “Give me my brother. Take my gate back, take my other leg, take my whole damn life. I don’t care.”

“But surely you’ve noticed where you are?” Truth asked. “You see what’s going on?”

“I’m in  _ that day,”  _ Ed replied. “I don’t know how, or why, or if it’s even real. It doesn’t  _ matter.  _ Alphonse is what matters, so  _ give him back.” _

Truth’s grin turned cruel again, and his rounded white hand raised, cupped around the ugly red-brown shape of a poorly made, weak Philosopher’s Stone.

“You’re lucky,” Truth told him. “The other one left this behind.”

Red crackled through the white room, and then he was back in the basement of his old house once again.

“Fuck,” Ed swore, looking around. His brother was laying on the side of the array, unconscious, and a few feet to the side, a younger version of him was bleeding out on a filthy wood floor. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit…”

He still didn’t know what Truth’s game was, but...if this was real, and he couldn’t see what else it could be, he needed to get these two somewhere safe.

He pushed himself up off the floor, only to immediately stumble and drop back down onto his knees, his legs unable to support his weight for even a moment. 

The metallic clank as he hit the ground informed him that his automail had survived the pass through the gate, which was either a great thing or an awful one - he hadn’t decided. Still, his nerves were shot, and the muscles in his flesh-and-bone leg felt flimsy and worn.

He had to get up, though. He at least  _ had  _ legs, two of them - more or less - and he needed to stand on them and  _ move,  _ because these two wouldn’t be able to. 

His legs were still shaking in his second attempt, but he managed to get upright. If he leaned heavily onto his automail leg, he could even stand relatively steady. 

He limped in this manner over to the form of his younger self, scooping the child off the ground. His heart ached at the sight of someone so young hurting so much, torn between empathy for a child in need and intense self hatred for having done this to himself in the first place. 

Edward and Alphonse had both been rather muscular children, thanks to their training, and as such were not exactly  _ light.  _ Ed was strong, though, and he managed to gather them both up by laying Al over his shoulder while he held child-Ed in a way that kept his leg elevated, hoping to make the blood running over his arm flow a little slower.

Children in hand, Ed started on his way, limping toward the house next door.

  
  


Ed made it up the first two stairs of the Rockbell house before his leg gave out again, dropping him to his knees on the top step.

The door flew open in front of him, and he raised his eyes to the shocked ones of Granny Pinako. 

“Who…?”

“They’re okay,” Ed rushed out, not giving her any time for questions, just extending his arms to offer child-Ed to her. “But he’s bleeding out. He needs you.”

Pinako faltered for a split second, before her face hardened, and she gave a solemn soldier’s nod. “Can you bring him inside?”

Ed took a shaky breath, but forced himself up onto his legs again. The limping was even more dramatic now, his muscles protesting even the faintest of movements, but he managed to get a few steps in the door before dropping again.

He could hear Granny calling for Winry, and the clanging of her readying her medical supplies, but it all faded into a hum as he lost consciousness. 

  
  
  


Edward was the first to wake, apparently, because he could see Al and his younger self still asleep on beds to the side of him when he did. 

He could also see the restrains tying his wrists down to the sides of the bed, because Granny was a paranoid old witch. 

“You’re awake,” her voice came to his other side, and he looked to meet her eyes. “Care to explain who exactly you are? And why you showed up with these two in the state you all were in?”

Granny wasn’t an idiot. There was no way he was going to get away with an excuse of being a passing stranger or anything else. However, “I’m pretty sure Not-God sent me from the future” was also not a great introduction to try unless he absolutely had to.

Luckily, she was so eager for an explanation, she practically lied  _ for _ him. 

“I didn’t know Hohenheim had other children,” she said, tapping the end of her pipe with a finger idly. “But you’re his spitting image.”

Ed scowled on reflex. 

“Ah,” Granny said, sounding almost amused. “You’re definitely his, then. That’s the same spite I see in Edward every single day.”

Ed looked to the side, where his child self was sleeping, and locked his eyes to the bandaged stump of his leg. “It’s justified,” he murmured. “He leaves. He can talk a big game, but he’s a hypocrite. He runs just as much as I do.” 

“There’s a story there,” Granny said. “And I’d love to hear it, since it seems I owe you and your sudden visit for the survival of these two boys.” There was a beat, and then she asked, quietly, “They tried to do it, didn’t they?”

“They wanted her back,” Ed confirmed. “They were desperate.”

“And you?” Granny asked. “Who are you, beyond your father? What’s your name?”

Ed hesitated.

He couldn’t exactly call himself  _ Ed  _ or  _ Edward,  _ because then there would be two of him and that would just get confusing. Or, worse, someone would start calling him something like  _ Ed Sr.  _ and make it sound like he was old as fuck. He wasn’t even 30, yet, for a good few more months, and he wasn’t about to be treated like he was ancient. 

Van Hohenheim sounded like a last name, so Ed could have claimed that for the second part, but he’d still need a first name. He could make one up, but...he wasn’t really great with names. He usually just stole names he’d heard somewhere else. 

Stolen names...Hohenheim had been offered a full name once, right? What had he claimed it was?

_ Theophrastus,  _ right?

Good enough for him.

“Theo,” Ed - no,  _ Theo -  _ offered. “I...it’s hard to explain, but I started a transmutation at the same time they did, and it seems like the energy..transferred. I woke up in their array, instead of my own.”

Or, well, the crackpot alchemist’s, but the effect was the same.

“You...teleported? With alchemy?”

The newly-dubbed  _ Theo _ shrugged. “I’ll have to study the arrays to see what happened,” he said, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to do that. He had stepped through the gate, is what happened, and as useful as teleportation would be, he damn sure wasn’t about to do that again on purpose.

“Well, Theo,” Granny said, “I don’t know what kind of man you are, but your father was a mystery I never could understand. All the years I knew him, he never aged a day...that’s how you’re so much older than them, isn’t it? He had a family before Trisha.”

“He never had a family,” Theo muttered in response. “He had kids, and he left them. He doesn’t get to claim them as  _ family.”  _

Granny’s lip twitched up. “You really are a lot like Edward, aren’t you? I suppose half-brothers must naturally have a bit in common.” She stepped back, gesturing into the house with her pipe’s stem. “Come, talk with me in the kitchen. Maybe you can shed some light on the things about Hohenheim that never quite made sense.”

“Oh, believe me,” Theo replied. “You don’t want to know.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Call me Theo. I look like Hohenheim because I’m his son, too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the reaction to the first chapter was so good im so happy ;u; here is some more theo content for yall since you liked it  
> in this chapter we have traumatized children being highly suspicious of a nice person and theo living for the Drama™

Ed woke in agony.

His whole body ached, but the worst of the pains were from his leg. The entirety of it ached, which had him forcing himself to sit up and look.

His memory hadn’t failed him, his senses were just lying to him. The leg was gone.

Their attempt at transmutation had failed spectacularly, and he slowly started to recall the bits of it leading up to his passing out.

It had seemed to be working for about twenty seconds, and then he’d been somewhere new. Instead of their dark and dingy basement, he’d been in an endless white void, staring at a giant gate.

He could remember being sucked into it, the seemingly infinite information that was crammed into his skull, creating a pain like a migraine times a thousand. He could remember the grin on that  _ thing’s  _ face when it took its ‘toll,’ claiming his leg.

He could remember waking up in the basement, and seeing eyes. Not his mother’s soft brown ones, the ones Alphonse was lucky enough to carry, but cool gold. The kind he only ever saw in mirrors and memories of his bastard father. 

And then...Alphonse. 

What happened to Al?

Ed looked frantically around the room, finally recognizing the Rockbell house, but not taking the time to be comforted by that.

There were three patient beds stuck in the room. One to his right, which was empty, and one to his left, which held his sleeping brother.

Ed breathed out a sigh of relief. He wasn’t sure what he’d feared had happened to Al, but knowing his brother was there, whole and alive and  _ okay,  _ was a weight off his shoulders.

His very, very heavy shoulders, weighed down with their colossal failure. 

They hadn’t brought their mom back. The thing in the center of the room had started off as an abomination, just a mass of tissue with reaching limbs sticking out here and there, and then it had shifted, solidifying into the shape of that strange man.

The same strange man that was walking back into the room.

“Oh,” the stranger said, faltering in midstep a few feet from the beds. “You’re awake.”

“Who are you?” Ed demanded. “Did...did we  _ make  _ you?”

The man snorted. “Yeah, no,” he said, almost laughing. “You didn’t  _ make _ anything. Your transmutation was hijacked, and I got spit out in the middle of it.” 

He crossed the room, reaching out, dropping his hand in the empty space where Ed’s leg should have been. 

“You remember it, right?” he asked. “The Gate?”

Ed gave a short nod. “You’ve seen it?”

“I came through it,” the man replied. “I got dragging into one at the same time you did, and it spit us both back out in the same place.”

“That’s possible?” Ed asked, fascinated by the concept but also horrified at the idea of having to go  _ into  _ that thing. Then, narrowing his eyes at the stranger, he asked, “Why do you look like… _ him?”  _

The man blinked at him, seeming shocked. After a moment of silence, the stranger reached up, pushing a hand through the loose hairs that were escaping his ponytail and shaking his head with laughter.

“What?” Ed snapped. “What’s funny?”

“I thought you’d ask why I looked like  _ you _ ,” the man said. 

“Why is that funny?”

The man shook his head again, dropping his hand back down to the edge of Ed’s bed. “Nevermind. Forget it. I’m-...Call me Theo. I look like Hohenheim because I’m his son, too.”

His dad had another family? Was that why he left? Did he have a trail left in his wake, of families made and abandoned when he got bored?

Theo’s lips quirked up in a small, sad smile, like he knew exactly what Edward was thinking about. “If it makes you feel better,” he said, “I really don’t think he knows about me at all.”

It didn’t help  _ much _ , but it was something. 

“You said you were pulled into the gate,” Ed realized, then. “Does that mean...did you try to do it, too?”

Theo shook his head. “I’ve tried it a couple of times, actually.”

Ed straightened. “Then-...?”

“No,” Theo cut him off before he could even ask. “It’s not possible. Once someone is dead, they’re dead. There’s no reversing that. You may be able to create life, but it will not be the life you were after. Instead, you create a monster. A Homunculus. Artificial life.”

“Would that be what we made? If you hadn’t come through?”

Theo shook his head again. “Technically, but it would have been weak. It would have lived for a few seconds, maybe, but it wouldn’t be able to sustain itself. It would have died almost immediately. It probably already had, actually.”

“So that’s it, then?” Ed asked, quiet and doleful. “We didn’t have a chance? It was for nothing?”

Theo looked down at his hands, rather than answer, which told Ed everything he needed to know. 

“Damn it,” Ed swore. “There was no point! Why did we-...all of that was for  _ nothing?”  _

“Not quite.”

Ed sat up a tiny bit straighter. “What?”

“You have me, now,” Theo said. “Someone who has already made the mistakes you want to try out, and can let you know how bad they went. Someone to help you back on your feet, if you’ll let me.”

They stared at each other for a long time.

“Why did you try?” Ed asked, unable to help the curiosity burning at him. “What were you trying to do, when you came through?”

“Nothing,” Theo replied. “I was the one in the middle of the array.”

He turned and left the room before Ed could get any explanation for that.

  
  
  


Al woke up not long after that. Ed comforted him, assured him that the missing leg did not hurt (even though it did), and filled him in on the strange turn their transmutation had taken, and the even stranger man that it had delivered.

Theo, meanwhile, spent the time with Granny, which went exactly as poorly as expected.

“You’re an alchemist, too?”

“I was.”

“What does that mean?”

Theo bristled. “It means what I said. I  _ was.”  _

“But you’re not now?”

He thought about it. He had used alchemy for Al on instinct, which meant that the crackpot alchemist’s transmutation had, technically, worked. “...I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t used alchemy in years. Or, I hadn’t, until last night. I’m not sure if I’m that person anymore.”

“Hm,” Granny grunted in response. “I don’t know anything about alchemy, but if you’re anything like those boys in the other room, you’ll be back at it tomorrow. Those two fell in love with alchemy the first time they learned about it and they’ve never looked back.”

_ Never look back  _ had been his motivation for most of his military career, Theo could remember. 

Oh, and there was another question. Would he rejoin the military?

He had no paperwork, here, no record of his existence. Paperwork was shit most of the time in rural areas, though, so he could probably bullshit his way through that. And, as little as he wanted to do with the Amestrian government, the military would put him in a good place to start chipping away at ‘Father’s’ plans. 

He was sort of tempted to just start digging until he found the fucker and beat him to death again, but as satisfying as that would be, it probably wouldn’t actually work.

He supposed the best thing to do would be wait and see what kind of offer Mustang came out with, when he…

Oh,  _ shit _ . Mustang was going to show up, at some point. Mustang, who Theo had avoided interacting with directly except to steal case files to go investigate on his own before the military could send anyone, because he hated being idle and he also hated the way pretty much every soldier in Amestris regarded the last two words of ‘wanted dead or alive’ superfluous. 

Mustang, who he still owed 520 cens, because he wasn’t meant to take office until the start of the next year.

Dammit. He hated not keeping his word.

  
  
  


“Every single lead so far has been a bust,” Riza said, “And our driver said this boy is  _ eleven.” _

“I'm hearing reasons not to be optimistic,” Roy replied easily. “Not necessarily reasons to give up.”

“ _ Eleven,  _ Roy.”

“Just..let me try.”

Riza waved a hand toward the door in front of them, as if to say  _ ‘by all means, go ahead.’ _

No time to waste with second-guessing himself. He took a steadying breath and knocked on the door. 

Silence. 

A second knock yielded no better results, nor a third. Finally, frustrated, Roy tried the doorknob.

It opened without issue.

Roy heard Riza ready her gun, just in case, as they slid into the house, treading cautiously.

The living room and kitchen were both perfectly normal, excluding the fact they were nearly barren.

_ “Shit.” _

Roy startled at the sound of someone cursing, and signalled Riza to be ready to shoot if needed, leading her into the room the sound had come from. 

What he saw was this: a wide room, with every item in it pushed against the walls, wooden floors scratched and coated in loose white dust.

Chalk. Last traces of an array, most likely, that was being furiously scrubbed away by a man on his hands and knees in the center of it.

The man was somewhere around Roy's age, with golden hair tied back in a messy bun and equally vibrant gold eyes that shot up to squint suspiciously at Roy from copper-toned cheeks. 

Miracle of miracles, he was definitely  _ not _ eleven. 

That probably meant he wasn't Edward or Alphonse, though, and Roy racked his brain a moment to remember the slightly pretentious name of their father - the reason the boys had made his list of potential candidates in the first place. 

“Hohenheim?”

The man grimaced. “Theo,” he countered, and Roy couldn't tell if it was meant in confirmation or denial. “Can I help you, Colonel?”

Roy had not introduced himself, and even if he had, he was not a Colonel. His only guess was that the man had spitballed a rank based on his uniform’s embellishments, which would mean he was decently familiar with military systems. 

Ominous. 

“Lieutenant Colonel Roy Mustang,” he corrected. “And Second Lieutenant Riza Hawkeye. We were chasing rumors of skilled alchemists in the area.”

“Chasing them through other people’s houses?”

Roy looked around, trying to see any recognizable patterns in the scratches. He could make out the faintest traces of the symbols for copper and lead, which told him exactly nothing of value. “No one answered, and I was under the impression that the only residents of this house were a pair of orphans. I was concerned.”

“Yeah, well,” the man,  _ Theo,  _ said, turning back to scrubbing at the floor. “You got me instead.”

“...Was there something wrong with the array?”

Theo paused in his movements, looking back up at Roy, loose hairs escaping his bun to fall into his face as he did. “A few things,” he answered, tone cryptic. “Which is to be expected, considering the alchemists drawing it were nine and eleven.” 

Roy latched onto the hint fiercely. “The boys do live here, then.”

“I never said they didn’t,” Theo replied easily, sitting back on his heels, tossing his sponge aside and tugging at his rolled-up sleeves to keep the fabric up above his elbow. “They’re next door, recovering.”

“From what?”

The man pushed up off the floor, standing in front of Roy with a challenging fire in his eyes.

“Human transmutation,” he said. “Which is why I’m gonna need your help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> people who read my other fma fics too: god christian really loves putting ed's hair in a bun


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “God hates me,” Theo replied, utterly dry. “I’ve learned to expect the worst.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yall are killin me with how nice your comments are ;w;
> 
> here is some Theo Is Dramatic™ content

The look on Mustang's face when Theo said “human transmutation,” slack jawed and wide eyed, was so comical that he could  _ almost _ forgive their continued height difference. 

Al's return to his body and the loss of one automail limb had allowed him to grow to a respectable 170cm, but here he was, 29 years old and still a good three centimeters shorter than Mustang. That was fucking annoying. 

On the bright side, maybe his younger alternate would be able to get tall, since he would never have the stops on his height that Theo had. At least one of them could have that going for them. 

It was at least something distracting to think about, rather than spend every millisecond it took Mustang to process agonizing over what reaction he would land on in the end.

His expression didn’t give any hints, entirely blank, and his voice was carefully even - he wasn’t giving Theo any look into his cards until he showed his own.

“Help with what?” the military man asked. “Covering up a felony?”

Theo raised an eyebrow, gesturing to the floor. “I can do that much myself.”

Mustang’s lips pressed into a thin line. “Then what do you want from  _ me?”  _

“If I leave those boys alone, they’ll do something stupid,” he said. “Something like listening to you and becoming state alchemists, for one.” He waved to the floor again. “They’re talented enough to make it, too. What I want is a deal. _ I  _ join up,  _ I  _ work for you, and you promise me that you’ll make sure that they’re looked after, no matter what happens.”

Mustang’s eyes narrowed. “You’re expecting something to happen?”

“God hates me,” Theo replied, utterly dry. “I’ve learned to expect the worst.”

“And you are an alchemist, too?” Mustang asked. “Good enough that you think that you’re worth this kind of deal?”

Originally, Theo had a demonstration planned for that. Mustang had shown up earlier than he’d remembered, though, which in hindsight made sense - there had to have been time lost while he explored the house and its carnage the first time,  _ before  _ he burst into the Rockbell house to yell in his face. The result was that he’d just been about finished clearing away the last of the array, rather than working on the designs for the new one that was spinning around in his head. 

“I’m good,” Theo said, instead. “I specialize in improvised alchemy.”

Mustang’s eyebrows rose. “What does that mean? How do you  _ improvise  _ alchemy?”

“I have a roster of basic transmutation circles,” Theo explained, “and I’ve learned to tweak them as needed just as fast as I decide what I want to do. I can react in seconds.”

Mustang looked intrigued, if reluctant and suspicious. “How do you draw a circle in  _ seconds?”  _

Theo grinned. “I don’t.”

He didn’t wait for Mustang to ask, just clapped, letting static crackle around his hands, before dropping down to press his hands against the attic floor. The wood beneath his palms started to sink in, collecting into a mass that stretched and warped to his specifications, until a moment later he had one of his once-standard spears. 

“No circle,” Mustang breathed. “How do you..?”

Theo’s lips quirked in a slight wry smile. “Souvenir from when God only  _ strongly disliked _ me.” He reached up, trapping his shoulder. “I’ve been the subject of a human transmutation before. The rebound wasn’t worth it, but I have a lot of unique insight into alchemy because of it.”

He could  _ see  _ Mustang’s mental chessboard moving, arranging the pawns he had to make room for another knight.

Theo didn’t intend to be a knight, though. If the king on the other side was Bradley, Theo intended to be the queen that put him in check.

(He very deliberately did not let the smartass part of his brain point out that that implied some things about his relationship to the king on his side, because his day had already been weird as hell and he was allowed to make shitty metaphors if he felt like it.)

“If you join my team, I’ll make sure they’re looked after,” Mustang said, with the steel undertones of a promise. “I have plenty of connections to keep two children safe. Especially if they already have a strong alchemist as a guardian.”

Theo supposed that meant  _ him,  _ which reminded him of another favor he needed to ask.

“I don’t have any paperwork,” he said. “I’ll need to get that if I’m going to be the one taking care of them.”

“Simple enough.” Mustang extended a hand, which Theo shook. “The test is at the end of the month. That’s why we were searching when we were. I’ll meet you in Central, and trade you your entry application for identification documents.”

“And adoption papers?”

Mustang’s lips twisted into a smirk. “I’ll trade  _ those  _ for your acceptance papers.”

Theo snorted. “Fair enough. See you in Central, asshole.”

Mustang turned and headed out, leaving only Hawkeye, hesitating in front of him. 

“Lieutenant?” Theo prompted. “Something wrong?”

Riza looked to the doorway, where Mustang had paused, watching the exchange over his shoulder. They held gazes for a moment before she looked back, asking Theo quietly, “...Who were they trying to bring back?”

Theo gave her a sad smile. “Their mom.”

In the split second they held eye contact before she turned and followed Roy out of the house, Theo could see her heart break.

  
  
  


“...What are you doing?”

Theo straightened, looking to the doorway, where Pinako’s tiny shadow could be seen. “What is with you people just walking in here?”

“What people?” she asked, crossing the room with the cautious steps of someone navigating a minefield. “I’m just here because the boys are wanting to talk to you, and I’m not about to send either of them out here to look for you.”

That was fair, considering Theo himself had responded to the carnage and gore by just burning the whole fucking thing down. 

“What are all these?” Pinako asked, carefully skirting the edges of the transmutation circles sketched out on the ground. “Are these where they…?”

“No,” Theo said. “I cleaned that up. These are mine.”

She gave him an expectant look, clearly annoyed at the possibility she would need to ask a third time.

“I came through an array,” Theo said. “I’m not going to test this on anything living, but I was just wondering...is it possible to link two arrays, where I can deconstruct an object on one and reconstruct it on the other?” He pointed to an array at Pinako’s feet. “It’s possible to rig transmutation circles so that they activate when certain conditions are met, without an alchemist having to actually touch them. It’s possible to activate multiple arrays at the same time. Xing has a form of transmutation that can be done at a distance. And, because of this, I now know that every transmuted object passes through the same plane of existence. If I can combine all of those concepts…” 

“Teleportation with alchemy,” Pinako summarized. “And that’s what these are? Do they work?”

“I haven’t tried,” Theo admitted. “I keep tweaking the array, but there’s no point trying to activate it when I already know it’s not right.” He crossed the room, scooping up a small wooden statue off one of the circles at the edge of his improvised workspace. “Setting it up to transmute something automatically when a seperate array was set off wasn’t that hard, but it draws from its own surroundings, not the original array. I have to find a way to force the arrays to  _ link,  _ so that the materials from two different places can be shared by both circles.”

“And how’s that going?”

“Terrible,” Theo replied easily. “I haven’t had to do this in years. I’m out of practice, and this is next to impossible already.”

Pinako hummed, and he looked to the side to see her squinting at him, sizing him up. 

He frowned. “What?”

“You used to do alchemy research?” she questioned. “What made you stop?”

Theo hesitated, before offering a tentative, “I was looking for answers. I got those, and I was okay with that. Nothing left to research.”

“Hm.” She looked down to the ground, at the sprawling chalk circles. “And now something’s caught your interest again, is that it?”

“...Why are you asking?”

Pinako raised her stern gaze to him. “Those boys haven’t had family in a long time,” she said. “I want to know if you intend to change that, and your reasons for it. I’m not about to entrust them to a stranger who comes stumbling into my house in the middle of the night just because he shares a bit of blood with them.”

Theo chewed his lip. 

Pinako had a good point: they had no reason to trust him, the random lost brother that was dropped quite literally at their front door with no explanation beyond ‘weird alchemy, go with it.’ If he wanted her to understand, to give him the ability to take Ed and Al on and keep them safe, he needed to give her something that showed he wasn’t about to make their lives even worse.

She’d asked about Hohenheim, when he’d first turned up. That was as good a place to start as any.

“Have you heard of a Philosopher’s Stone?”

“I assume it’s an alchemy thing,” Pinako replied, dry and unimpressed. “And I know exactly nothing about that stuff.”

“It’s this theoretical alchemy ingredient,” Theo explained. “A substance that is so great in value that it can be used to make  _ anything,  _ without having to find something equivalent to base the transmutation off of. You could make gold out of wood, or diamonds out of dust, or even things that don’t have an equivalent.” 

“Meaning?”

“Humans,” Theo replied. “Life itself. Souls.”

Pinako stared at him for a long moment, before murmuring, “There’s more than just a theory, I’m guessing, or you wouldn’t bring it up.”

“Van Hohenheim knows how to make a Philosopher’s Stone,” Theo told her. “Because he was there when the first two were made - and one of them is his own body.”

Pinako was quiet as she processed that, and Theo couldn’t help continuing on, filling the silence with further explanation.

“That’s why he doesn’t age,” Theo said. “His body isn’t human anymore, not really. It’s a vessel for immense alchemic energy. To kill him, you’d have to wear that energy down, which would mean forcing him to perform transmutations over and over until he tried to use more of the stone’s worth than he had left. Possible, but...really,  _ really _ annoying.” Theo toyed with the fingers on his left hand, the sensations in the returned flesh-and-bone fingers a grounding force for him. “That’s what I was studying, with my alchemy research. I wanted to know everything I could about Philosopher’s Stones, and when I learned...the stones require sacrifices to be made. Mass slaughters, genocides, hundreds or thousands of souls for even a weak imitation of a stone.”

“...And Hohenheim has one?” Pinako asked, words coming out slowly as the pieces ticked into place. “ _ Is _ one?”

“He didn’t make it,” Theo said, “but there was enough energy in the transmutation to make two, and the one in charge of collecting it liked him just enough to share.”

Pinako seemed to agree with the disgust in Theo’s tone, judging by the look on her face. 

“So, what I’m trying to do,” he continued, “is track down the  _ other  _ first stone, and destroy it. There’s a lot more stuff going on, but it’s really better not to ask. Just...Al and- and  _ Ed,”  _ he caught himself just before saying ‘I,’ “they have the potential to be in a lot of danger, if they don’t go along just right with the mess that’s about to play out. I know just what is coming for them, though, and if I play my cards right, I can keep all three of us safe. I made a deal with a state alchemist, that if I work for him, he’ll make sure nothing happens to those two, even if something happens to me.”

“ _ Will  _ something happen to you?”

“I have no idea,” Theo answered honestly. “Once I can show certain people I’m one of the ones they’re looking for, I probably won’t have much to worry about from them  _ directly,  _ but this country is a shitshow. And…” He shifted his weight between his feet, searching for a way to phrase what he needed to say. “Eventually, I need to find a way back home. I’d rather get everything secured here, first, but the end goal is getting back to my own family. My younger brother was with me when I got pulled through the gate, and it’s driving me crazy that I don’t know if he’s okay, or what happened to him after the transmutation. I need to make sure he’s alright, kick the ass of the alchemist who started this shit, and get home to my wife before she gets even more annoyed with me than she already will be. She hates when I’m gone too long.”

He was  _ always _ gone too long.

“Well,” Pinako said, folding her arms over the top of her cane. “I don’t know a damn thing about alchemy, and I’ve got more questions now than when you first popped up. I don’t wanna know the answers, though. Just tell me one thing: if they go with you, will they be safe?”

That wasn’t something Theo could promise, but he answered as honestly as he could, “It’s the safest they could ever be.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, dropping the tiniest hints toward future plots: grow, seeds of future gays*
> 
>  
> 
> *disclaimer: not all plots are romantic, but they are still gay, because author is gay and said so


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Al’s brows furrowed into a confused frown. “It showed me stuff, too,” he said. “But it didn’t take anything from me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here are some povs that arent theo's! + the boys realized how bad they fucked up  
> once again, all of your comments give me life and i love yall  
> warning for the chapter: everyone cries

Ed was losing his mind. 

It had only been a day, and being trapped in bed was already becoming unbearable. If Pinako were there, he’d ask for a wheelchair or crutches or something, so that he could actually move around the house. She  _ wasn’t _ there, though. She had taken Ed’s question of where the mysterious ‘Theo’ had went and walked right out of the house, hopefully to go find him.

And, honestly, that was probably the main thing that was making sitting still so agonizing. All he wanted to do was hunt down his suppose half-brother and find out everything he could about him.

How had he managed to travel with alchemy? What did he mean when he said he’d tried human transmutation more than once? If that were true, how come it took nothing from him but took a leg from Ed?

...That brought up another interesting point, and Ed turned to the side.

“Hey, Al?” he asked, catching his brother’s attention from the bed beside him. 

Al’s eyes were tired and red-rimmed when he looked over, his face bleached from the stress that had been haunting him since he woke. He was not handling the scope of their failure well. “Yeah?”

“When we…” He wrung his hands, searching for words. “Did you see... that thing? That freaky gate thing?”

Al’s lips pressed in a thin line. “I thought that was a dream.”

Ed straightened, latching onto the thread immediately. “But you did see it?” he asked. “Did you- did it show you anything?”

“...What?”

“The gate,” Ed tried to explain. “I got pulled into it. It was showing me all this stuff, and then I was outside of it again, and it took my leg. It called it my ‘toll.’”

Al’s brows furrowed into a confused frown. “It showed me stuff, too,” he said. “But it didn’t take anything from me.”

There was a beat as they both considered the implications of that.

“That...the monster that was next to the gate,” Al ventured. “The white thing. You saw  _ that _ ?”

“Yeah,” Ed confirmed. “That’s what took my leg.”

“When I came out of the gate, it laughed at me,” Al said. “It said-...It told me that it would have just left me in there, but keeping me would cause more trouble than I was worth. So it said ‘you’re free to go,’ and then there was nothing for a while, and then I woke up here.”

Ed considered that. “What would keeping you there have done?” he asked. “What does that mean? What made it let you go?”

Their questions were interrupted by the sound of the front door opening. 

“They’re back!” Al cried out, climbing quickly out of bed. “I’ll go get them!”

He ran off before Ed could say anything else, leaving the elder brother by himself.

He understood the reasoning, he just wished that didn’t hurt so badly.

  
  
  


When Ed had described Theo to Al, he’d given the vague explanation of ‘he looks like  _ that guy,’  _ which turned out to both be accurate and a severe understatement.

Looking at him, Al thought he fit more in some space on a spectrum between their father’s appearance and Ed’s. His jaw was slightly squared and his coloring was definitely their dad’s, between his golden hair and eyes and the slight tan to his skin, and all that screamed Hohenheim.  His eyes, however, were rounded and gentle where their dad’s had been sharp and calculating, and he had no facial hair, and the only lines on his face were faint and hard to notice if you weren’t looking for them. 

He tried to place the rest of his features, to find something familiar in the slope of his nose or how his top lip was thinner than his bottom one or the tiny dips in his temples, but his memory of his dad's face was vague at best. Ed claimed they looked alike, though, and so Al just had to take that on faith.

As Al watched, Theo reached up, letting his hair out of the messy bun it had been desperately trying to escape, letting it fall free around his shoulders for a moment before gathering it back into a tight ponytail, making the resemblance to Hohenheim a little sharper, while also showing Al that this guy probably didn’t do much fighting. Not that he didn’t look strong, or anything, because his sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and his arms definitely showed he did some form of exercise. It was just that his hair was long to the point of being impractical.

...Then again, Izumi-sensei had kind of longer hair, but it wasn’t a problem because no one ever got close enough to grab it. 

Maybe this guy was the same way. He did look like a pretty tough guy, hair aside.

Al must have been staring too long, because Theo turned then, eyes locking onto him. His face went all pinched, some expression Al couldn’t even guess at naming crossing his face, before it went right back to that blank and cagey look he’d had since walking in. 

“Alphonse,” Granny called to him. “You’re awake. Good. This is-...”

“Theo,” Al interrupted, before flushing. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to-...Just, brother told me-...”

“Yeah,” Theo said, crossing the room to stand in front of Al. “I’m glad you’re alright. That...that could have gone a lot worse.” He reached out, hesitating at Al’s reflexive flinch before pressing on, dropping a hand on his shoulder. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but you guys got lucky.”

Al’s eyes lowered to the floor, burning. “We just wanted our mom back,” he murmured through the threat of tears. 

“I know,” Theo said. “I’m not lecturing you. I’d be a hypocrite - I’ve tried, too.”

Al’s head snapped up, eyes locking on Theo’s. “You have?” He reached out, grabbing the arm that still had a hand on his shoulder. “You and me, we’re okay! Why did brother-....Why did it  _ take-…” _

“It takes a toll from everyone who passes through,” Theo told him, voice gentle. “Ed’s leg was his, but not every toll can be seen from the outside.”

Al frowned. “I’m missing something  _ inside?”  _

“Maybe,” Theo replied, taking a step back, eyes turning away. “I can’t tell any better than you. You have a lot of expendable body parts on the inside, so you might have gotten off with just losing one of those, or something.”

Granny huffed around her pipe, but when Al looked to her, she was already turning to leave.

“I’m going to check on your brother,” she said, heading into the patient room. “Don’t come in here ‘til I’m done.”

The door clanged shut behind her, and Al was comforted by the fact he wasn’t the only one who flinched. 

“...What was your toll?” Al asked, looking up at Theo.

Theo’s face pinched up again. “I...everything. It took everything.”

“But…”

Theo rounded on Al, dropping into a crouch, reaching out to catch his arms when he tried to stumble back. “Alphonse,” he said, voice suddenly hard and serious. “You guys got off easy. A leg is  _ nothing  _ compared to what you could have lost.” 

His grip was tight, almost painful. Al leaned back, trying to encourage him to let go. 

He finally seemed to realize he was doing it, releasing Al and scrambling back a few steps, rising back up to his full height. 

“...I’ve done human transmutation more than once,” Theo confessed, quietly, glaring down at his hands as though they had grabbed Al of their own volition. “The toll it took the first time, I chased down and got back.”

Al perked up. “You can-..?”

“No,” Theo said, eyes locking back on Al’s. “You can’t.” He reached up, pushing his shirt collar down, revealing metal bits scattered throughout the skin. “This one stupid arm cost me my entire brother. I’d four automail limbs, or no arms at all, if it meant he had been safe.”

Al turned, horrified, to look at the door to the patient room. Granny Pinako had said not to come in, but he wanted to ignore her. To burst in and check that his own brother was okay, that his leg really had been the only price they paid. 

Theo had lost his brother to human transmutation. Suddenly, his words struck a lot harder - it may not have felt like it, but they were  _ lucky.  _

“He…” Alphonse reached up, covering his mouth to stifle his own sobs. Through his hands, he asked, “He could have  _ died?”  _

“Hey.”

Al looked up, just in time for Theo to crouch down, pulling him into a hug. 

He hesitated, frozen in shock, before he returned it full force, burying his face into the man’s shoulder to cry freely.

“Equivalent exchange only goes so far,” Theo murmured. “Some things don’t have a price to match, and you need to be thankful for those things while you have them. I know you miss your mom...but your family isn’t all lost. Focus on what you have left, and love it with everything you’ve got- that’s the only thing you can do.”

Al gripped the back of the man’s shirt, pulling back just enough that his murmur could be heard. “Are you going to stay?”

The hand petting through his hair paused for a moment, before the arms gripped him a little tighter. “I’m going to try.”

  
  
  
  


At the sound of crying, Pinako had to put a hand flat on Ed’s chest, pushing him back down onto the bed with surprising strength.

“You can wait,” she insisted. “This breakdown was coming, and it’ll be easier for him if he’s not trying to look strong for you. And I need to change these bandages, so  _ sit down.”  _

Ed slumped against the headboard of the bed, glaring down at the stump of his leg as she calmly unwrapped its bindings, the stoic silence of a doctor overriding anything else she might have showed.

“...When you first started studying alchemy,” Pinako said, quiet, as she worked on his leg. “When you first got  _ obsessed  _ with it, I thought..Maybe, in the absence of your mother, you were trying to cling to what you could remember of your father.”

Ed scowled, but she ripped a bandage loose a little harsher than normal, effectively shutting up any commentary he would have offered. 

“I let it go,” Pinako said. “When you’d skip school to study your dad’s journals, or made Winry play by herself so that you two could practice. When you dragged that woman into taking you on as apprentices. I thought, whatever way they choose to cope. Winry threw herself into automail after losing her parents, and I wasn’t much better, so who was I to judge?”

Her hands stilled on the stump as she got the last of the bandages loose, hesitating between the removal and re-application.

Her shoulders were shaky. With her face turned down, Ed couldn’t tell if it was in anger or grief. 

“This is a stupid thing you’ve done, Edward Elric,” Pinako told him, her voice rasping and pained. “I know you miss her. We all do. But what that teacher of yours kept saying, it’s true - you can’t solve everything with alchemy.”

“I  _ know-...”  _

“No, you  _ don’t _ !” 

Ed blinked, as Pinako snapped up a glare at him. 

“You don’t know,” she said, quieter. “What if it had taken more than this?”

“We didn’t think-...”

“That’s right,” she said. “You didn’t think. This could have killed you. And imagine, for a second, that it worked. Imagine you two gave everything you had, and your mom was the one who woke up on that floor. Do you think, even for a second, that she would have been able to appreciate her life, if it had cost either of you anything at all? Let alone  _ everything?  _ The only things she ever cared about were Hohenheim, and the two of you. If she lost all three of those to alchemy, she’d have never made it out of that array.” 

She turned back down, starting to wrap fresh bandages tightly around his leg.

“But it didn’t work,” she continued. “It wouldn’t have. You two are geniuses, but you’re still human. You’re still just two little boys, who missed their mom. You don’t have power over life and death. The only thing that would have happened if you gave everything would be that we lost you two. Do you think Winry could handle that? Or, suppose if only one of you were lost. Do you think Al could live without you?” Her eyes raised back up, narrow and harsh. “Could you live without Al?”

Ed’s cheeks were warm, and he realized he was crying. “I’m sorry,” he rasped.

“ _ I’m _ sorry,” Pinako said, softening, giving him a sad smile. “I’m sorry that I refused to see you two breaking down right in front of me. I’m sorry you felt like this was your only choice.” She looked back down at the bandages, finishing them off, before standing and offering him a more neutral look - something relieving to see, because Pinako was rarely so expressive. “At least this brought you one good thing. That strange new brother of yours...he’s an interesting sort.”

“Did you talk to him?” Ed asked, wiping his face, trying to latch on to the topic change. “Did you learn anything about him?”

“A few things,” she answered, cryptically. “He reminds me a lot of Hohenheim.”

“That’s not a good thing,” Ed muttered.

Pinako barked out a laugh. “Maybe not,” she said. “But, in spite of everything, I think he actually does care about you two. I think that, no matter the circumstances that led to him finding you two, he needed someone to care about, and he’s taking the chance he was given.”

Ed looked to the door. The sounds of sobbing had stopped, easing off at some point during Pinako’s lecture. He wondered if Theo had left, or if he’d comforted Al, or if he’d done anything at all. 

He wondered what Theo planned to do in the future, what he wanted from them, and how he intended to get it. 

Mostly, he wondered the same thing Al had asked: would he stay?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> my favorite thing is throwing in tiny references to stuff that comes up more later, which i did like 4 times during al's analysis of theo lmao  
> also. pinako's reaction to the transmutation is never really shown?? like every time shes on screen its another characters pov and they dont pay much attention to her beyond her forced doctor's stoicism and i just. wanted to have her actually say something for once so enjoy that i guess


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come with me,” Al said, grabbing his wrist to pull him along. “Brother and I wanted to talk to you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /updates twice in 24h with the power of nice comments/  
> theo, ed, and al have that family talk! featuring theo getting cornered about his life story and trying desperately to only lie by omission

When Pinako finally stepped out of the patient room, she said nothing about the fact that Theo was still holding Alphonse, instead just giving him a solemn nod and pushing right past him with a passing comment about going to check up on Winry. 

Winry hadn’t been able to spend very long in the room with the boys unconscious, which Theo was grateful for, because seeing her at  _ ten  _ was just unspeakable levels of weird. He was dreading the point when she’d start doing as she’d done before, hovering at Pinako’s side in a desperate attempt to help where she was able.

“C’mon,” Theo said, nudging Al and standing back up, herding him toward the patient room. “You need to get back in bed. We can talk more when you’re rested.”

“Come with me,” Al said, grabbing his wrist to pull him along. “Brother and I wanted to talk to you.”

Theo grimaced where Al couldn’t see him, but let himself be dragged. He was probably going to have to start coming up with a lie for all this, because just dodging questions wouldn’t save him from a suspicious Edward Elric. He knew that better than most. 

Still, it would be a good opportunity to get some feedback on his plans. He’d really rather they were on board with his plan to save them - it would make things a whole lot easier if they played along.

  
  


Ed had about sixty seconds after Pinako left the room to get his emotions under control before the door was pushed back open, Al peeking in.

“I found him,” Ed’s brother informed him, before opening the door completely, revealing that he was dragging Theo behind him by the wrist.

Theo appeared to be halfway between grim acceptance and amusement. It was a face Ed was familiar with, the ‘this would be funny if it weren’t happening to  _ me’  _ kind of look. He made it a lot when Winry dragged them into some kind of game. 

That just reminded him of Pinako’s lecture, and his lips pressed in a thin line as he tried to keep from showing the others in the room what kind of inner emotional struggle he was dealing with. 

“You didn’t have to drag him, Al,” Ed sighed. “If he didn’t want to come, don’t  _ make  _ him.”

“I didn’t make him!” Al protested, letting Theo’s wrist go immediately. “I just-... I just didn’t want him to leave, that’s all.”

“I don’t mind,” Theo said, moving his newly freed hand to close the door behind them. “You probably have questions, huh?”

“A couple.”

Theo huffed out a surprised-sounding laugh at the sarcastic tone of his answer. “Right. Walked into that one.” The man crossed the room, taking a seat on the edge of his bed, while Al crawled up to sit at the foot of Ed’s. “Ask away.”

Ed had a million, but one was the loudest among them. “Who did you try to transmute?”

Theo winced. He hesitated a moment, before finally murmuring, “My brother.”

Beside him, Al straightened up. “The same brother? If he died during a transmutation, then how…?”

“He wasn’t dead, originally,” Theo said. “He was still alive, but just barely. His soul hadn’t left yet, which meant I could still access it. If I acted quickly enough, I could trap it.”

...Trap..?

“I used my blood to draw a seal,” Theo told them. “On a suit of armor.”

Al leaned forward. “Like the one in the study?” he asked. “Dad had another one?”

Theo’s face pinched. “He’s a weird guy,” he muttered, in lieu of an answer. “But it was a good thing it was there, because it meant..It meant I could use it as A- as my brother’s body.”

Ed’s blood ran cold as he finally caught what Theo was telling them. “You turned your brother into a suit of armor.”

“He couldn’t sleep, eat, or feel,” Theo confirmed. “He could move, and see, and talk, but nothing could really  _ touch  _ him. It killed us both, every single day, and all I wanted was to find a way to get his body back.” He reached up, placing a hand on his shoulder. For whatever reason, Ed would need to ask after later, Al tensed at the gesture. “But I lost my arm in the transmutation,” Theo said. “And my brother wanted me to get that back, too. And one day, we got in this fight, way in over our heads, and my automail got crushed….and he made the call. He gave up his life so that I would have a fighting chance.” 

Ed couldn’t imagine dealing with a situation where he had to choose between his own body and his brother, but he was pretty sure he’d make the same choice. Al was worth it.

Theo’s brother must have thought  _ he _ was worth it, too, which made Ed wonder what kind of person their new brother really was.

“...That’s one,” Ed said. “And then your brother’s transmutation for your body. What was the other time? Who else did you try to bring back?”

“My brother, again,” Theo said. “I went back to the gate and made it an offer, because I wanted my brother to live - not just as a shell, either. A real, flesh-and-blood human being.”

Theo had said the only reason his first transmutation worked was because his brother hadn’t actually been dead. That implied that the second time, when he  _ was  _ dead…

“What did it take?” Al asked, quietly. 

Theo laughed, a forced and ragged sound, before moving to prop his leg up on the bed between Ed and Al.

“We match,” he said, hiking up the leg of his pants to reveal an automail leg. 

Ed stared down at it, as it finally sunk in what exactly had happened to him. That was automail, and Theo said they matched because he was going to end up needing that, too, because  _ his leg was gone.  _

He looked to the stub of his leg and the empty space in front of it, and finally really processed the fact that the limb was lost. 

Breathing was suddenly a lot harder.

Desperate not to fall apart in front of the other two, Ed rushed to distract himself with another question.

“And the one that brought you here?” he asked. “The one that was done on you?”

Theo pursed his lips. “I don’t know,” he said. “This alchemist...I didn’t even know him, but he knew me. Knew  _ about _ me, at least. I don’t know what he wanted, or what his goal was, or...anything, really. It’s something I’ll have to find out.”

“...Are you going back?”

Theo looked over at Al’s question, before giving them both a small, soft smile. “Eventually,” he said, but pressed on before either could feel upset by it. “But I have other things I need to take care of, first, and I’d rather you guys were squared away somewhere safe before I try to head home.”

“What does that mean?” Ed asked. “What do you need to do?”

Theo leaned forward, folding his arms across his knees and hunching over them so that he was closer to level with them. “I cleaned up your house,” he told them. “But not in time. A man from the military came looking for you two, trying to find who he heard were a powerful pair of alchemists. He found  _ me _ , scrubbing up a human transmutation array.”

Ed and Al looked to each other, the horror of the revelation slowly sinking in. What they’d done was beyond taboo - they were so,  _ so _ fucked. 

“I made a deal with him.”

Ed startled, turning to back to Theo. “A deal?”

“The man who was looking for you isn’t a bad guy,” Theo said. “He’s actually pretty decent. I don’t think he was really eager to arrest two kids, even for something this serious. So I made a deal with him that I’d give him what he wanted if he did the same for me.”

“...What did he want?” Al asked.

Ed had a better question. “What did  _ you  _ want?” 

“Mustang was looking for alchemists to work for him,” Theo explained. “Strong ones, clever ones...pretty much anyone he could trust to get things done. I told him I’d be that guy for him, if he’d help me keep you two safe.”

Ed blinked in shock, those words slowly processing. This man had known them for all of a day, but he’d sold himself over to the military to protect them? He was willing to go this far to cover their mistakes? To give them a second chance?

“You’re going to join the military?” Al asked, quietly. “But aren’t they…”

“They’re dicks,” Theo answered immediately, making the younger boys both let out a startled laugh. “Like I said, though, Mustang’s not horrible. He’s got his own agenda, and if I’m working for him, I’m only ever going to do the things he wants me to. He’s an overconfident prick, but he’s not going to make me do anything to fuck over other people. Everything else, I can deal with.”

Ed looked down to where his hands were fisted in the fabric of his sheets, just over his knees, placing one hand right before the edge where his stump leg dropped off into empty space. “...Why are you helping us?” he asked, keeping his eyes downcast eyes locked on that edge. “You don’t know us. You don’t...We.... _ Why?”  _

“You’re kids,” Theo said, gentle but firm, honest in its kindness. “Being smart, being good at alchemy, that’s all great, but you’re still  _ kids.”  _

There was a long silence.

“...I fucked up young,” Theo confessed to them. “And I paid for it. I never actually got the chance to be a kid. I had to grow up fast. I didn’t realize until I was trying to  _ raise  _ kids that I have no idea how a ‘normal’ childhood is supposed to go. I don’t want you two to be forced through that.”

He leaned back, giving them a broad grin. 

“Besides!” he chirped. “We’re family!”

Ed turned to Al, who looked just as overwhelmed as he was. 

A  _ family.  _ Pinako had said the same.

They’d spent so long looking for a way to get back their missing family, they forgot they had people left in their living one. And now here was someone new, a previously unknown half brother with a kind smile and an offered hand, asking them to trust him to keep that family together and safe. 

“...When you leave for the military,” Ed asked, slowly, “can we go with you?”

Theo responded with another happy grin, only slightly more subdued. “Of course. I was hoping you would, actually.”

“When do we leave?”

Theo laughed, standing back up off the bed, hand extending out.

Ed didn’t really process what he was doing until there was a hand on his head, ruffling his hair, before doing the same to Al.

“Not for a while, yet,” Theo told them. “Just focus on feeling better, for now.”

Feeling better. What had seemed like an impossible task only hours before was now a tangible goal, and Ed latched onto it with everything he had. 

As Theo left the room, Ed called out his name, making the man pause mid-step in the doorway.

“Yeah?” he called back, looking over his shoulder at them.

“...I’m going to get automail,” he said, feeling almost dumb for having said anything at all. Why should Theo care?

Theo, though, just smiled. “It hurts like a bitch,” he warned. “But it’s kind of cool, once it’s on.” He tapped his hand against the doorframe, seeming to think something over. “How about this...You get better, you get automail. Once you’re recovered from the surgery, then we’ll head out. Sound good to you two?”

Ed was going to recover from that surgery as fast as possible. The amused crinkle of Theo’s eyes suggested he knew it, too.

“Get some rest,” he told them, heading out through the door at last. “See you in the morning.”

“See you,” Al called after him, just before the door clicked shut. Once it did, he turned to his brother, eyes wide and wet. “Family,” he murmured. 

“Family,” Ed echoed.

It wasn’t a concept they had much experience with, beyond each other, but…

…But the Elrics had never once shied away from learning a new thing, and this would be no exception.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo: when youre good we can go  
> ed, to himself: you cant have family until youre better so rush your recovery  
> theo, to himself: you should clean up the house if youre going to stay for the full year or three it takes him to recover, or make a little shack with alchemy or something so youre close by, and you might need money to take care of them-...


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Come on inside, girl,” Granny scolded her. “Stop trying to be sneaky. We’ve known you were back there for at least ten minutes.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fma fanfic writing: speedrun
> 
> lmao nah but. you guys and your amazing feedback Fuels Me and ive been just. eagerly typing out more of this monster to try and thank you for it ;u;
> 
> this chapter was refreshing because for once, i got to write a child character that isnt 90% angst and is, instead, an Actual Child

Winry peaked around the corner of the kitchen doorway, looking around for a moment before ducking back, hoping that no one had noticed her. 

Granny was in there, and she usually knew when Winry was around, but she was mainly worried about the  _ guest.  _ The strange man who had turned up at their house with Ed and Al, covered in blood and unable to stand, and passed out in their entryway. 

She’d only gotten brief glimpses of him, too busy trying to help Granny get everything set up for the medical procedures that Ed’s lost leg had needed, and then too overwhelmed by the need for those same operations. 

Granny had told her that Ed and Al had tried to do some kind of experimental alchemy, or something, and it had backfired. She would ask them more about it, but she wasn’t allowed in the patient room when there were people  _ in  _ there, even if those people were as good as brothers to her. 

She could ask the man, but that would require  _ talking _ to him, and so far all she’d managed the courage to do was peak at him from enough of a distance that she could bolt if he saw her.

He had the same hair as Ed and Al, only his was really long. She was pretty sure his eyes were gold like Ed’s, too, but it was hard to tell at a distance. He looked kind of tall, but she wasn’t sure if that was true, because  _ everyone  _ looked tall next to Granny Pinako. She wasn’t really sure how tall regular adults were supposed to be. He’d been in a plain dark grey shirt, stained with blood and with the sleeves pushed up past his elbows, and a pair of pants made of some thick fabric she didn’t recognize, smeared with chalk dust. There was probably blood on them, too, like the shirt, but the dark fabric made it hard to tell. 

Dark clothes weren’t something she saw a lot, because it was way to hot in Risembool for anyone to wear anything that wasn’t light and casual and usually pastel. It made his strangeness even more unsettling, contrasting with his gold features to make him look like some sort of mythological creature come to haunt them.

Maybe he was a vampire. She tried to peak back around the corner, thinking she could watch him talk and look for pointy teeth.

Instead, she let out a shriek, as she found herself face-to-face with an unamused Granny Pinako. 

“Come on inside, girl,” Granny scolded her. “Stop trying to be sneaky. We’ve known you were back there for at least ten minutes.”

Winry’s face exploded with warmth, and she was sure she was cherry red. “I wasn’t sneaking!” she protested. “I just…”

Granny raised an eyebrow, tapping a finger on her pipe. “Just..?” she prompted.

“...I wanted to see who he was,” she whispered, eyes darting to the strange man.

His eyes were locked on the door of the patient room in a way that seemed deliberate, like he was trying to pretend Winry and Pinako weren’t in the room with him at all. Maybe he thought she was in trouble. Ed and Al always hated being around Granny Pinako when she was mad at Winry, so maybe this stranger was that way, too.

“So speak to him,” Granny said, entirely unsympathetic. “Theo, this is my granddaughter, Winry. Winry, this is Theo, Ed and Al’s half-brother.”

Winry straightened, eyes going wide in alarm at the introduction. “He’s what?”

Theo finally turned, looking at her, his face sort of halfway between flushed and pale, like he was sick. She wondered if he was hurt in the experiment, too, or if he had the flu. 

“Hello,” he said. He was quiet, but his voice sounded very familiar. It took her a moment to realize that he probably sounded a lot like Ed and Al’s dad. Her memory of him wasn’t great, though - he’d never really spent time around them while they were playing, when he’d been there, so she only ever heard him speak when her parents we talking to him, which she wasn’t usually supposed to listen to because it was ‘adult conversation.’

This man seemed like someone who probably had a lot of ‘adult conversations.’ He had that sort of serious frown on his face. She tried to smile at him, to see if he’d smile back, but when he did it was weak.

He must have been  _ really  _ sick, cause he looked kind of like he wanted to throw up.

“I didn’t know Ed and Al had a brother,” she said. “Do you live in Risembool, too?”

“Ah, no,” Theo said, looking away again, back at the door. He still looked sick. “I live, uh, pretty far away.”

“Oh.” She looked to Granny, waiting for the woman to offer some input, but she just shook her head and focused her attention on her pipe again. That hope for help gone, Winry ventured, “You’re just visiting?”

“Not really.”

“...Oh.”

Theo shook his head, turning back to her. “I’m sorry. I’m being really rude. I just- it’s been a long day, and I’m kind of shitty at small talk.” 

“It’s okay,” Winry told him. “Ed and Al are bad at talking, too.”

He gave her a small smile. “Are they? Must be hereditary.” He looked like he was about to laugh, but Winry wasn’t sure what he’d said that was funny, so she hoped he didn’t. “As for the question, I’ll be sticking around for a little while. I’m just not sure how long, yet.”

“Are you staying here?” Winry asked. Sometimes patients stayed for a while at their house, to recover from more intensive surgeries, so it wouldn’t be too weird. “Or with Ed and Al? I think they need an adult living with them, because they can get away with  _ anything  _ right now, and that’s just not fair.”

“Very true,” Theo laughed. “I guess I’d better ask to stay with them, then. Even the balance a little.”

“Equality is an alchemist thing, right?”

Theo tipped his head. “More  _ equivalency _ .” 

Winry frowned. “What’s the difference?”

“Well…” Theo leaned back in his chair, raising his eyes up to the ceiling, like he was searching for the words up there. “Transmutations use equivalent exchange - I can make an iron plate into an iron gear, because I’m going from a shape of iron to a different shape of the same iron. The plate and the gear are equivalent. But if I took, say, silver and copper - they’re both semi-precious metals, and about equal in most people’s eye, but I can’t use one in place of the other.” He shrugged. “It’s just a technicality, but theoretical alchemy is most of what I’ve been doing for the past decade or so. It’s force of habit to try and debate it.”

Winry turned that over in her mind, before quietly asking, “Is that why you’re here? Because of their experiment? Granny won’t tell me what happened.”

Theo looked stunned for a second, then shot a glance toward Granny, who  _ tsk _ ’d at him in response. 

“Spare her the details,” she said. “I wasn’t going to put that stress on her until Ed was out of the woods. He heals fast, though, and whatever took his leg off did it clean. There was nothing I really have to do but keep it clean and wrapped.”

Theo looked back to Winry, pinched and sick look slowly rising back to his face. 

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” she asked. “What they did. That’s why she won’t tell me.”

“It’s...it’s pretty bad,” Theo confirmed. “Remember what I said about equal vs. equivalent? Well, there’s this debate in alchemy, about human beings. Every human is equal, but...we aren’t equivalent. I have two arms, and thinking of equality would mean I could give one to someone who didn’t have any, and we’d both have one. But that’s not how it works. It’s not a perfect exchange. Humans are equal, but they have no equivalent.” 

“I don’t understand,” she admitted. “What does that have to do with Ed and Al?”

“The tried human transmutation,” Theo told her. At her blank stare in response, he explained, “They tried to find an equivalent to the human soul, so they could bring someone back from the dead.”

Winry sucked in a sharp breath. “...Their mom?”

“Their mom,” he confirmed. “The rebound was bad, and that’s how they ended up like they are. Ed’s leg is the only thing that seems to have turned up missing, at least.”

To her side, Winry watched Granny straighten. “I thought you told Al he was probably missing an organ.”

Theo winced, at the same time Winry clapped her hands over her mouth, trying to stifle the horrified noise that had risen at that revelation.

“Alchemy rebounds aren’t usually non-invasive,” Theo said. “If he was missing something, he’d know it.”

“So you lied.”

Theo’s lips pressed into a thin line. “It’s...complicated. I’ll explain later.”

The two stared at each other across the table. 

“Winry,” Granny said, eyes never leaving Theo’s. “Go check on Edward and Alphonse. I’m sure they’d be happy to see you.”

Ah. Winry was right, at least - Theo was definitely one for those ‘adult conversations.’

  
  
  
  


As Winry rushed out of the room, Theo propped his elbows up on the table, resting his head in his hands. “I lied to Al,” he confessed. “The gate- the  _ transmutation _ , it didn’t take anything from him. I just didn’t want to tell him what it took instead.”

“And what was that?”

Theo weighed his options for an answer. He could lie, but he had been doing a good job of keeping that to a minimum. A good thing, because he would be under a lot of stress soon trying to untangle the military’s underground schemes, and he didn’t have the time to be worried about remembering a cover story.

Luckily, he’d already laid out the foundations for the half-truth he needed to tell.

“The transmutation that sent me here,” he said. “I didn’t activate it. Another alchemist did, and I’m not really sure why. He had a Stone.”

“...The ones that are full of souls?”

“It looked like it was barely functional,” Theo said, “but yeah, it was definitely a Philosopher’s Stone. When I landed in the transmutation, I interrupted it before Al could be charged a toll, and I was able to cover the cost by letting it take that stone instead.”

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You paid for Al’s toll? With one of  _ those _ ?”

“If I didn’t..” Theo shook his head. “If I didn’t, it would have taken him completely. Moving fast enough could have saved his soul, but his body would have been lost for certain.”

Pinako took a long draw off her pipe, turning to the side to let out the breath, letting the silence lay while she processed.

“I don’t know a damn thing about alchemy,” she said. “I’m not religious, either, so talk of souls or spirits or what have you, that all goes right over my head. So, tell me plain: with that stone, did you save Al’s life?”

“He’ll be fine, now, as-...”   
“Not what I asked.”

Theo paused, meeting Pinako’s challenging stare. As much as he hated to oversimplify things, he sighed, allowing a soft, “Yes.”

“Then, thank you,” she said. “That boy is family to us. They both are. If you’re telling me that just by being here, you’re keeping our family alive, then I have no issue including you in it.” She stood from the table, heading toward the stairs, calling over her shoulder as she went. “I’m going to bed. Send Winry up when she’s done visiting, and get some rest. Tomorrow, we’ll have to look into cleaning up that house, if you’re gonna have somewhere to stay.”

Theo’s heart clenched, and he smiled to himself as she vanished up the staircase. 

His own family was nearly twenty years and countless miles ahead, but the Rockbells hadn’t hesitated to allow him into theirs. Maybe, just maybe, when he went home, he’d have the comfort of knowing he left his past self all the better for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pinako cant decide if theo should be hailed as a blessing or if shes gonna have to bury him in her backyard but shes down for either honestly   
> also theo's brain was playing kill bill sirens the entire time winry was present


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Huh,” Pinako hummed somewhere behind him. “The boys have actually kept this place decently clean.”
> 
> Theo could remember that being true, if only because it was hard to mess up a house you were never in.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (2012 me voice) MOAR >:3
> 
> heres some more fic because once again, i love you guys and your lovely response to everything i post and it Fuels Me  
> this chapter is very heavy in pinako content so strap in for the greatest granny

When Theo had chosen to clean up the remnants of the human transmutation, he’d moved through the house with that goal in mind, not taking even a second to glance at anything else along the way. He’d gunned it straight for the carnage, cleaned it up as though puppeting his own body from someplace far removed, dealt with Mustang, did some experiments, and then left, all without allowing himself to process the fact that he hadn’t been in that house in nearly twenty years.

When Pinako suggested he would stay there, he’d brushed over it, not really thinking it would be an issue. He’d already gone in there, after all, right?

Standing in the living room, he realized that was most certainly not the case.

“Huh,” Pinako hummed somewhere behind him. “The boys have actually kept this place decently clean.”

Theo could remember that being true, if only because it was hard to mess up a house you were never in. If he had the breath to speak, he might have suggested something similar. 

Instead, what he got out was, “I need to-...” before he was bolting back out of the house, trying to get as far away from it as possible while still remaining in its yard. 

He could hear Pinako follow him out, but he didn’t take the time to worry what she thought was going on. Instead, he hunched over, taking deep breaths and trying to convince himself not to be sick. 

He wasn’t sure how long it took him to get his heart rate to slow back to normal, but when he straightened up, Pinako was watching him silently, puffing on her pipe.

“Better?” she asked, when he caught her eye.

“I’m sorry,” Theo told her. “I-...”

He trailed off, waiting for her to ask.

She didn’t. 

“...When I tried,” Theo said, quietly, “I didn’t...I couldn’t go back to my house. My brother and I- well, it was me, mostly. I burned it down. I didn’t want to look back. I’d killed everything good there, and I didn’t want to remember.”

“Well,” Pinako said, “Try not to burn this one down.”

Then she turned and headed back into the house.

Simple as that. No further comments needed.

No wonder Hohenheim had been friends with her. She was impossible to faze. 

Here he was, unloading yet another fact of his life on her, and she was just as unimpressed with him as she’d been when he passed out in her doorway. Earth-shattering revelations about the feats of forbidden alchemy became minor details to her, the cause not as important as the effect it had on her family directly. 

When he got back to his own time, and his own family, he’d need to ask Winry if she felt like going home for a visit. Telling Pinako the truth was getting to be a cathartic habit, and he would likely have a lot of information to dump on her after all this.

First, though, he needed to make sure everything went alright in whatever alternate dimension he’d been dropped into. If he was travelling through time, it shouldn’t matter how long he spent there, returning to the moment he left from should be equally as impossible from any moment in time. The only thing he had to worry about was turning up on that array a good few years older than he’d left, but considering that Alphonse had to regrow an entire body once, it probably wouldn’t bother him too bad.

Winry might not like it. Theo wasn’t sure - what Winry would like or dislike was a coin toss some days. Or, maybe it wasn’t, and he was just shit at predicting how she’d react. 

That was probably more likely, actually. 

When he got home, he should probably make an effort to be a better husband. He should  _ definitely  _ make an effort to be a better father, because watching these kids look at him like he was some kind of hero just for giving a shit was making him very, very concerned about how his own children felt when he went gallivanting across the countryside in search of something to make him feel actually  _ useful _ . 

That was for worrying about later, though. For now…

He looked back to the house, gathering his strength. 

_ Don’t burn this one down,  _ he told himself, looping Pinako’s words into a mantra as he went inside.

_ Whatever you do, don’t burn this one down. _

  
  
  
  


“Hohenheim’s library…”

Pinako looked up, over to where Theo was standing, staring at the shelves of journals and study materials his father had left behind. 

It was the first thing he’d said since his confession in the yard, and though she wouldn’t admit it out loud anytime soon, she was glad to hear his voice again. She’d worried that he’d fallen back into some bad headspace, and she was no good with that. 

Luckily, Theo seemed to take after his father almost as much as Ed did, in that quick bounce back whenever something went wrong. 

“He had a lot of books,” Pinako said, following his gaze. “That’s where the boys learned alchemy.”

“Yeah,” Theo murmured, nonsensical and absent-minded. He reached out, fingertips trailing across the spine of the closest journal. “I wonder…”

“Hm?”

Theo snapped upright, looking to Pinako like he’d forgotten she was even there. “Nothing,” he said, quickly. 

She gave him an unimpressed stare, letting him know what she thought of that pitiful attempt at a cover-up. 

Theo sighed, his shoulders going slack. “I mentioned I’ve been studying alchemy,” he reminded her. “He probably knows things I hadn’t figured out. I never could crack his code as a kid, but maybe  _ now…”  _

“Well,” she said, waving to the books. “No one else is using them. Ed’s complained that they’re full of nonsense, but if you think you can get something out of it, feel free to take them.”

“I will,” Theo said, with a determined little nod to himself like he’d decided on a goal. “Who knows, he might have the answer to how to work that transfer array. If anyone knows how the gate works, it’s him.”

“You can pick his work apart later,” Pinako said, catching his attention again. She’d been cleaning the kitchen when she noticed him missing, and followed him into the study, and she was ready to remind him of their purpose if she needed to. “What did you come in here after?”

“I just wanted to do something,” Theo said, more of an absent-minded murmur than an actual conscious answer. Without offering any further explanation, he walked deeper into the room, heading for the back wall.

As Pinako watched, Theo approached the suit of armor that stood in the back of the room, stopping in front of it. 

She could only see his back, but that was ramrod straight and tense, suggesting that there was something more to that thing than Pinako knew. 

After a long pause, he turned a bit, bending down to retrieve one of the discarded pieces of chalk he’d been sketching his experimental arrays with when she found him before. 

She couldn’t see the marks he made on the armor’s chest from where she was standing, but it wouldn’t have mattered if she could - like she’d said more than once, she knew nothing about alchemy. 

She did know enough to recognize the blue light that let up the room as alchemic energy, which kept her from being too terribly shocked when the armor vanished, giving way to a rain of tiny metal bits.

“Not a fan of his decorations, hm?” she asked, crossing the room to scoop up one of the fallen pieces. It wasn’t a shard, the edges slightly rounded rather than sharp, but there was no other distinguishable shared shape between them. She thought alchemy was always deliberate, but he seemed to have only paid enough attention to his end product to make sure it wasn’t dangerous. 

“Not that one,” Theo replied, already turning to leave. 

It was pretty creepy, in Pinako’s opinion, but she had the feeling there was more to it than that. 

Nothing she’d bother asking about, though. Theo had already told her plenty of things she didn’t want to know, and she wasn’t inviting any more. It was for that reason she hadn’t tried to desperately to figure out which of Hohenheim’s travels in their youth had resulted in Theo’s birth.

There were some questions she just didn’t want to ask.

  
  
  
  


Adelbert Ebner had been mayor of Risembool for longer than some of the people living there had been alive. He couldn’t even put a number on it. He’d been a young man when he took office, though, and as he was now in his eighties, he had to assume it’d been a good fifty years or so. Definitely no less than forty. 

It wasn’t even a position he tried very hard to keep. It brought him joy to ensure the citizens of their little town were happy and healthy, but he’d have given the title away if he thought someone else could do it better. It was just that no one  _ wanted  _ the job. Most of Risembool’s citizens were just as old and tired as he was, or they were only there because they were too sick or poor to leave. Healthy young adults were a rarity, which made it hard for him to even consider handing over his seat. 

So, maybe, in his aging, he’d reached a point where his once-perfect memory for faces had started to fade a bit. Maybe he was starting to forget little things, or even big things, like entire people. 

Because standing in his office was most certainly Pinako Rockbell, just as beautiful as she’d been in their youth, but the man beside her was completely foreign to him.

Or...maybe not  _ completely.  _ Adelbert squinted, studying the features of his face, and tried to picture a beard hanging from his chin.

Yes, that was it! The beard was missing, that was all.

“Van Hohenheim!” he greeted, boisterous and welcoming. “You’ve been gone a while!”

“Clean your glasses, Bert,” Pinako said. “This isn’t Hohenheim. It’s his son.”   
Adelbert blinked. “I’m not so old, Miss Rockbell,” he said, “that I don’t remember that his sons are eleven and nine.” 

“Apparently, he had another,” she said. “This is Theo.”

“Ah, well then!” Adelbert stood, crossing the room to extend a hand for the man to shake. “Mayor Adelbert Ebner, here if you should ever need me. Which…” He looked to the side. “I’m assuming you do? You so rarely grace me with your beauty, you must be after something.”

He ignored the man in his peripherals scrunching up his nose, mouthing  _ ‘beauty’  _ to himself in bewilderment. Young people had no respect, especially not for women.

“He’s staying in town for a while,” Pinako told him. “I wanted to put him down as a guardian for the boys, while he’s here. I’m not giving up claim to them, but he deserves to be able to take care of his own brothers.”

“Of course, of course,” Adelbert agreed. If Pinako trusted him, this kid must have been a decent sort, so he had no reason not to agree. “Is he staying long enough to need me to confirm him a citizenship?”

“May as well,” she replied. “It’ll make it easier to hire him.”

To his side, the young man straightened. “To what?”

“Your leg is automail,” Pinako said. “I can hear it plain enough when you walk. I figured a smart type like you probably knows enough about his own limb to help out around the shop.”

“Oh. Thank you.”

She waved him off, looking to Adelbert again. “You can get it sorted, right?”

“Most certainly,” he assured her. “I’ll have the papers filed by the end of the day.”

Her lips curved faintly in a miraculous mimicry of a smile. “Good. Thanks for the help, Bert.”

She turned and left, the strange boy close on her heels, and Adelbert turned his attention to seeking out the forms he would need. 

He was not so old that he couldn’t do a favor for a pretty lady...even if he wasn’t really sure he remembered which papers were required for a guardianship.

He should really get an assistant. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i dont know why i wanted to make an oc for the perspective at the end of this chapter and i REALLY dont know why he is in love with pinako but that is the content that came from my hellbrain so lets just go with it


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You were in Ishval, weren’t you?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> short chappie!! but im sick today and missed work so you get two updates in one day enjoy  
> also warning because the end of this chapter is. two disabled people showing blatant internalized ableism

“Let me look at that leg.”

Theo stilled, looking at Pinako in alarm. “...Why?”

“You had it locked up when you arrived,” she said. “And your steps are uneven, which means you probably damaged it.”

Theo could vaguely remember being weak and exhausted and choosing to use his own leg like a crutch. In hindsight, not a great idea, but it had allowed him to reach the Rockbells at least. 

He crossed the room, taking a seat in a kitchen chair and moving to roll up his pant leg. “Alright,” he allowed. “It hasn’t been maintenanced in a while, anyway.”

Mostly because he hadn’t gone home lately - he’d been away for a good couple of months at the time of the transmutation, launching straight from one job into another, barely bothering to excuse it when he spoke to Winry on the phone. She’d been annoyed with him for it, but he hadn’t stopped to stress about it, just made the excuse that he needed to follow the lead he’d gotten and trying halfheartedly to refer her to bother Mustang about it instead. 

He really did need to be a better husband.

Pinako crossed the room, dragging over a short little stool to sit on as she looked over his leg. She tapped her fingers along the metal, squinting at the connections between the pieces, running her fingertips across seams and joints. 

“You have sand in the knee,” she informed him. 

“...Huh.” Theo had only crossed desert land last month. That sand had probably been there a while. Not great for the metal, and also not a good sign for his nerve connections, if he hadn’t noticed the grating. “Weird.”

“You haven’t been taking care of this at all, have you?” Pinako accused. “A shame, too, because it’s a very advanced model. Innovative design - some sort of prototype? Your mechanic has to be-...”

She cut off in the middle of her commentary, going still and silent within the span of a second.

“...Is something wrong?” Theo prompted. “G-...Uh, Ms. Rockbell?”

“You were in Ishval, weren’t you?”

Theo blinked. “What? No, I-...”

“Do  _ not  _ lie,” she snapped, looking up at him, eyes blazing with a fury he couldn’t even begin to understand. “You damn sure never stepped into this house, or I would remember, which means  _ you were in Ishval.”  _

“I don’t know-...”

“My son!” she cried out, smackin a hand down against the knee of his leg. “This is a Rockbell Automail stamp, right here. Yuriy made this, didn’t he?”

Theo faltered. He didn’t have an answer that didn’t dig him deeper into the hole he’d dug for himself. He couldn’t explain the truth, that it hadn’t been Yuriy at all, that  _ Winry  _ had made his leg, without explaining the full story, and Granny Pinako wasn’t the type to appreciate him picking and choosing which details to give her. 

“Were you with the military?” she asked. “Did they call in freelance alchemists when their soldiers weren’t enough?”

Theo wasn’t getting out of this one without a lie. With that in mind, he let out a low sigh, and decided: from this second forward, the original Edward Elric as he’d been had to cease to exist. He had no room to be two people at once, and with another Ed around, he had to commit to being Theo instead. 

“I wasn’t with the military in Ishval,” he assured her. “I wasn’t involved in the war, for either side.”

“Then what were you doing there?” she pressed her hand against the metal plate along the front of his calf, where the stamp presumably was. “How did you get this?”

Theo chewed the inside of his cheek, trying to find a story that would get him out of this.

“...The guard.”

Theo’s eyebrows shot up as Pinako stood, shaking her head and lighting her pipe, muttering to herself as she worked out her own theory of what happened. 

“Yuriy wrote to me from the front lines, just a week before someone called to tell me he was dead. He told me the guard for the medics had gone missing. Everyone was clambering to explain it with some conspiracy or another - the military killed him, the Ishvalans killed him, he deserted, anything at all to make sense of it.” She turned, giving him a cool stare. “You were the guard, weren’t you? You left them to die.”

Well, it was a story. Not a great one, but...one he could work with.

“The military did want them dead,” Theo told her. “They had a plan to stage their deaths already in place. They just didn’t expect someone else to get there first.”

“Someone else?” She narrowed her eyes at him. “Who? Who killed my son? You know, don’t you?”

“I don’t know his name,” Theo said. “But, yeah, I know who it was. An Ishvalan, whose brother had just died. He was angry and lashed out, and they just...got caught up in it.”

“You were there?”

Theo shook his head. “No. But I’ve-...It’s complicated, but I know who the Ishvalan was. His brother was an alchemist.”

Pinako frowned, confused. “An Ishvalan alchemist?” 

“Yeah. He had this array…” Theo hesitated, before offering, “It was designed to help them in the war, to counter alchemy.”

Pinako’s shoulders slumped, her eyes softening a bit. “You weren’t the guard,” she realized. “You were after that array. That’s why you were there.”

_ That  _ was a cover Theo was much happier to claim. “Yeah,” he confirmed, and mentally promised to apologize to his own Pinako upon his return for all the bullshit he was giving this one. “I still only know part of it, because-...well, like I said. He died. And his brother was kind of…”   
“He killed my son,” Pinako said. “So I’m assuming he’s not friendly.”

“He’s really not,” Theo agreed. “He’s not really an enemy, either, though, so I’m hoping I can find a way to make him share his brother’s notes with me one day. If I have that array, I can work out a version of it to help me against any Philosopher’s stones I find.”

“So you went to the front lines for him,” Pinako said, “and got caught up in the fighting.”

Theo looked away, toward the door he knew Ed and Al were sleeping behind, because that was easier than lying to Pinako’s face. “...Yeah, basically.”

“And you want to  _ join _ the military?”

Theo couldn’t help but let out a startled laugh. “Yeah, it’s a terrible idea, I know,” he assured her. “But...Military research resources are a million times better than what I can get on my own, and I can make sure those two are taken care of while I’m at it. It won’t be the first time I’ve put my goals ahead of my morals, and it probably won’t be the last, either.”

He looked back to Pinako, and the two held silent eye contact for a long moment. 

Finally, she turned away, moving to fetch a small toolbox. “Let me see that leg,” she said. “I won’t ask anything else, but from now on, you treat my son’s work with respect. Understand?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Theo promised. Winry would have killed him if he brought it home like that, anyway, so she was probably saving him.

  
  
  
  


It wasn’t until Theo was on his way to turn in for the night that his deal with Ed came to mind, and he realized a huge issue with it.

He’d agreed to take the  _ next  _ exam. 

The one that Mustang had claimed was at the end of the month.

He was so  _ fucked.  _

  
  
  
  


“...You want me to  _ what?”  _

“I know it’s a terrible idea,” Theo rushed out, which Pinako personally thought was an understatement. “But I really need to go, and I don’t want to leave them behind, and I also don’t want to make him miss out-...”

“You’re going to do worse than make him ‘miss out,’” Pinako snapped at him. “A full automail operation in less than a month? His nerves would be fried. He’d lose half the sensation on that side of his body. It could  _ paralyze _ him.” 

Theo’s face fell. He looked so distraught, and she almost felt bad for him. He clearly wanted to find a way to make things work, for him to be able to keep both his promises at once, but the world wouldn’t make allowances for that.

“The way I see it,” she told him, “You have two options. You call that man from the military and tell him to wait, or you leave Ed until he’s recovered.”

Theo’s lips pressed into a thin line. “I can’t do that to him,” he said. “I promised him- I said that we would all stick together. I can’t go back on that.”

“Then you’d best figure something out,” she said, “because I am not about to force an operation on him.”

“What’s going on?”

Theo startled as Al’s voice, and Pinako snapped her own gaze over to the doorway, where the boys were now standing. Ed had an arm around Al, using his brother as a crutch. 

“You’re leaving,” Ed said, tone flat. 

“I’m not-...I don’t have to,” Theo said. “I just...I double-booked myself. I promised you guys, but I also promised Mustang, and I just realized I can’t keep both.”

“Sure you can.”

Theo faltered. “You...have an idea?”

“I want automail,” Ed said, “but I don’t have to get the whole rig at once, right? I could get the port, and then just use a wheelchair or a crutch until that recovered. I could go with you, and just come back for the second part when I was ready.”

A simple option, and one Theo seemed surprised to hear.

For Pinako, though, she thought it made perfect sense. Ed could have been missing all four limbs, and he’d still stubbornly insist he was fine. He’d want to be back on his own two feet as soon as possible, but he wasn’t the type to feel sorry for himself or think he was in any worse shape for having a disability.

Attaching an automail port would seal up the wound, allowing for a recovery without so many bandages, and then the process would be the same if he stayed with her or went with Theo.

“I can do that,” she agreed. “A quicker surgery just means fewer lost nerve endings, and as long as you keep resting while the port recovers, it doesn’t matter where you are or what you’re doing.”

“You’d be willing to go with me?” Theo asked, quietly. “Even if it meant you might have to wait a little longer for-...?”

“I’ll be fine,” Ed cut him off, stubborn as ever. “I’m standing right now, aren’t I?”

Pinako snorted out a gruff laugh at that. The boy had a point - even if he was leaning on Al to do so, he was most certainly upright. 

“Okay,” Theo said, sounding like he couldn’t believe it himself. “Okay, we can do this. We can go to Central.”

“Give him at least a week to recover here, first,” Pinako insisted. “But, yes. Once I clear him, there’s no reason you can’t go.”

She usually wasn’t a very emotional person, but the look of sheer bewildered joy on Theo’s face broke her heart a little. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo: how can we go to central without ed getting his automail   
> ed: what if i dont get automail  
> theo: 'o' face pikachu meme


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She was right, he wasn’t wearing his ring. He hadn’t been wearing his ring for nearly a month.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back to work after the holidays/sick leave shenanigans so thats why this took a bit longer, but thank you guys who were concerned about me in the comments ;w;  
> some Things: timeline wise, since this is right after the transmutation attempt, elica wont be born for a bit longer  
> (also, in regards to something else that was mentioned...nina was just recently born. her mom hasnt 'left' yet ;) )  
> heres some more theo introspection where he realizes hes way more like his dad then he wanted to be  
> also remember that moment when roy assumed theo was hohenheim and theo didnt bother to correct him? yeah, thats gonna be a Problem™

The morning after their plans were established, Pinako grabbed Theo and thrust a medical bag into his hands, steering him out the door. Apparently, she made weekly trips into town in case anyone needed her services, and as her newly appointed lackey it was Theo's job to keep track of her supplies. 

Which, it seemed, was just an excuse to get him away from the house and any potential eavesdroppers, so she could interrogate him. 

“I wasn't going to ask,” she said, “because I really don't want to know anymore of this strange alchemist nonsense you have going on. But you brought it up again and now I have to, so...you don't wear a wedding ring.”

Theo resisted the urge to look at his hands, as if to check, because he already knew what he’d see. She was right, he  _ wasn’t  _ wearing his ring. He hadn’t been wearing his ring for nearly a month.

He didn’t wear his ring because he took it off every time he went to see Mustang, so that he didn’t have to deal with the man’s eyes locking onto it as he reached out to accept whatever file he was stealing, squinting at it as he asked after Winry and his kids like he actually cared.

Sometimes, he’d wondered if those questions were Mustang’s way of reminding him that he had other places to be. Other times, he didn’t care  _ what  _ they were about, they just bothered him for reasons he couldn’t quite explain. 

Bothered him enough, even, that he’d taken to popping off his ring whenever he headed to Mustang’s office. Bothered him enough that sometimes - like this past time - he didn’t put it back on, instead just carrying it around. 

He told himself a lot of things about that habit, like that he didn’t want to mess up the ring while beating in someone’s face or that he didn’t want to give anyone potential leverage against him by admitting to having a family, but for the most part, he knew he was full of shit. 

He didn’t wear his ring when he went to see Mustang, because Mustang would see it and remember that he had a wife, and then he’d say something about it. He didn’t wear his ring whenever he had extended time to himself where he wouldn’t  _ need  _ to wear it, because every time he saw it he’d remember the same thing.

That ring, when polished, could catch his face and reflect it in such a way that he could only see his dad. It was a reminder that he’d staked a claim and made a promise he never bothered to honor until it suited him.

He was a shit husband and a shit father, and he would  _ really  _ need to make an effort to be better, because this just kept showing him more and more reasons why his actions were unacceptable. 

All this inner turmoil aside, Theo knew what Pinako was after, and so he dug into his pocket until he found the metal case he kept inside.

A button at the top unclasped it, revealing the tiny safe storage he carted around. Within the case sat a couple of hair ties, a scrap of paper with some forgotten note-to-self, what appeared to be a dinner mint, and, of course, his ring.

He picked it up, snapping the case back closed and putting it away, and sliding the ring onto his finger. 

“I take it off when I work,” he said. “It’s safer in my pocket, usually.”

“Mmhm.”   
Theo stiffened, looking to Pinako, waiting for her to offer further skepticism. 

She said nothing, though. Whatever judgements she was making, she kept them to herself, and Theo couldn’t even tell if he was grateful for it.

They walked in silence for a bit, before Pinako spoke up again. “The town is usually fine. Colds and allergies are usually all that’s going on, but I prepare for anything just in case.”

“Do you ever have people seriously sick?”

“Sometimes,” Pinako replied. “Usually, if it’s bad, someone will either send for me or call me. Some people are stubborn, though, and will sit out here and suffer until I come by and someone forces them to get checked over.”

Pinako had no way of knowing Theo’s own self-care habits, but he still felt like that was directed at him. Like somehow, she’d picked up that he was a terrible patient. 

Probably when she was cleaning the parts of his automail. If anything said ‘I don’t like to go to the doctor,’ it was the state he kept his automail in when he wasn’t around Winry. 

“So expect nothing, but be prepared for anything,” Theo summarized. “Pretty much how I live my life.”

“Is that why you stuck to those boys so quickly?”   
Theo startled, pausing in his steps at the same time as Pinako, the two turning to look at each other.

“You said you showed up in the middle of their transmutation,” she said. “And I saw them, yesterday - they don’t know you. You didn’t speak until you were in my house, and I’ll bet you barely told them anything. They’re clinging to you because you’re the only hope they’ve got, but you? You have a family.” She shot a glance down to his ring, as though making a point, before meeting his eyes again. “I can understand wanting to protect them, but something tells me you have another reason you don’t want to go home.”

Theo straightened, affronted, but Pinako didn’t give him time for rebuttal. She just turned and started off again, calling over her shoulder as she went.

“That’s just my take on things. Figured I’d share.”

A tight knot settled in Theo’s gut, and he ducked his head down, following after her without a word.

He didn’t have a defense. No matter what story he went with, he had no defense. 

He missed his brother. He missed Winry, and his kids. He missed the stupid fucking house he never stayed in and the sister-in-law he always argued with and trying to snatch his stuff back from the resident pickpocket and just…  _ home.  _ He missed all of it.

But she was right. From the outside, at the very least, it seemed like he  _ didn’t  _ want to go home.

And he had no way to explain it. No excuse to be found.

Not even for himself.

  
  
  
  


“Roy!” Maes Hughes exclaimed, standing up from his desk with a broad grin. “You’re in early! You should have told me, I would have come to the train station!”

Roy Mustang narrowed his eyes at his friend, entering his office, with Riza trailing close behind him. “No way you didn’t know I was going to be here today. You’re working on something, aren’t you?”

Maes  _ was,  _ actually, and unlike his actual work, this was something he could share. “Just looking into that thing you wanted me to check on.”

‘That thing’ was, apparently, the fourth member of a family of extremely talented alchemists out in Risembool of all places. Roy had apparently invited him to come and join up, and only asked Maes to make sure he wasn’t a risk  _ after  _ the fact. 

And, unfortunately for him, Maes hadn’t turned up much.

“Found anything?”

“The name ‘Theo’ doesn’t turn up so much as a rumor,” Maes told Roy, hopping up to sit on the edge of his desk as he filled them in. “‘Hohenheim,’ though.  _ That  _ makes the rounds.”

Roy raised an eyebrow, expression a silent prompt for Maes to explain.

“Lots of stories, in lots of places,” Maes said. “Insanely powerful alchemy. Seemingly impossible transmutations, performed easy as breathing. Of course, most of the stories I heard are from non-alchemists like myself, so they’re not terribly reliable. Still, all accounts fit the profile you gave me. Gold hair and eyes, strong features, alchemy without a circle. The ‘bad attitude’ seems to just be you, though. Everyone else describes him like he’s some kind of angel.” Maes hesitated, before adding, “Or a ghost. He’s not known for lingering in any one place for long.”

“We’ll give him a reason to change that,” Roy dismissed easily. “If he’s good, I need him.”

“Well, you’re in luck.” Maes twisted around to reach behind himself, digging through his papers on his desk until he found the folder he’d assembled earlier, turning back to pass it to Roy. “There’s all my notes on him. Somewhere in there is a letter to him, that the military police intercepted.”

Roy narrowed his eyes. “Seizing his mail?”

“It’s the sender, not the recipient,” Maes assured him. 

“Who wrote it?”

“Allegedly? Tim Marcoh.” 

Roy frowned. “He was doing unauthorized research, right? He’s the reason lab 5 was shut down.” 

“That’s him,” Maes confirmed. “You should read it. It’s pretty interesting.”

Roy opened the folder, flipping through the pages, seeking it out. It was stuck near the front, partially tucked in an opened envelope. 

 

_ Van Hohenheim,  _

_ I hope this letter reached you safely. We do not know each other, and so I don’t know if this will mean anything to you at all, but I have heard your name many times in my work. _

_ This is a warning. A courtesy.  _

_ I spent significant time working in alchemic research under the command of a group of demons whose only fear, it seemed, was you. And they were preparing to defend against this accepted threat, by any means necessary. _

_ They want your body, and want your blood. You are only useful to them alive, but death isn’t the worst thing that can happen to a man. They made certain I learned that. _

_ I’m going away. I took the results of my experiments and ran, and I intend to go underground and vanish forever, if I can. _

_ If you choose to fight, be wary. The sickness goes far deeper than the wounds you can see. _

_ Godspeed, _

_ Tim Marcoh _

  
  
  
  


“‘If you choose to fight, be wary,’” Roy read aloud. “What threat are they facing? Was someone blackmailing Marcoh into his work?”

“Do you know what Marcoh’s experiments were?”

Roy straightened. “You do?” 

Maes shook his head. “That’s beyond classified, it’s  _ unrecorded _ . They didn’t make note of what he did on paper, not anywhere. The things I’ve found along the way, though, notes by people who knew...They talk about body counts.”

Roy sucked in a sharp breath. “He was experimenting on humans,” he realized. “Someone was  _ making _ him experiment on humans.”

Maes crossed the room, lowering his voice. “My office is probably the safest place in Central,” he said, “but I don’t think this is something we should say too much about. Something bigger is at play here. I think there’s a message in that letter that you and I can’t see, but we have the key to figuring it out at hand.”

“The alchemist,” Roy filled in. “Theo Van Hohenheim. The letter is to him, he should know what it is trying to say.”

“When does he come in?”

Roy shook his head. “I don’t know. The test is almost three weeks out. We came in to file my proposal of him in person, to make up for the short notice.”

“An endorsement by the great Flame Alchemist will carry him a pretty good way through the system,” Maes said. “And if he’s as good as people claim he is, he’ll have no problem filling in the gap. All we need to do is make sure he gets there.”

Roy waved the letter around, before tucking it back into the folder carefully. “And make sure whoever  _ this  _ is talking about doesn’t get to him before we do.”

Maes nodded in agreement, and the three military personnel in the room stood in silence for a long moment. 

Maes was the one to break it, suddenly snatching his folder back from Roy and replacing it with a very different type of document. 

“In the meantime!” he cheered. “Look at my lovely wife! I took this yesterday. She looks so beautiful, and even better, she’s almost due! Can you imagine how beautiful a baby she makes would be? I can hardly stand it.”

Behind him, Roy could hear the creak of the door as Riza escaped.

Traitor. He was going to be here  _ all day.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you dont wanna know what maes did to get his hands on that letter. you just dont


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If every array he physically drew out tied itself to the matter it was on, then maybe his issue laid in the fact he'd been drawing them out at all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> double upload hype! here's some Angst™

Working with Pinako was just as boring as she'd warned it would be, leaving Theo mostly idle while she diagnosed her seventh case of seasonal allergies or checked over an old lady's “sprained” knitting fingers. All that meant, though, was that he had plenty of time to sit around bored and thinking, which in turn meant he was able to come up with several theories to test in his “teleportation” alchemy. 

Every array he ever used pulled from his own personal gate. That, at least, he knew for fact. 

If he drew the array on the ground, though, maybe that tethered it to the real world. Some arrays only worked when drawn out - anything related to human transmutation, for instance. Maybe that was because drawing it out created a physical link between the strange white void of Truth's domain, that space between worlds, and the actual living world around them. A bond that allowed the passage of the soul between the gate and its body.

If that were the case, then perhaps the roadblock he was running into was not the linking of his arrays to each other, but in the links they formed with the earth they were on. Each array wanted to draw from the world around it for matter and his gate only for form. He needed the array to draw  _ both _ from the gate. 

If every array he physically drew out tied itself to the matter it was on, then maybe his issue laid in the fact he'd been drawing them out at all. Or, at least, drawing two of them. 

As soon as he was freed from Pinako's servitude, he raced to the Elric house, holing up in the study to try his new theory. 

He cleaned up his previous failed experiments, and drew out a new circle. Utterly basic, the kind he used to use for making wood figures for his mom as a kid.

Rigging it to trigger from a different array was harder without a physical reference point, but not impossible. Maybe it would have been, had he not been exposed to the gate’s infinite knowledge so many times, but that wasn't speculation he wanted to waste time on. 

Instead, he crossed the room, getting well out of range of the first array, and clapped. 

Blue static crackled around him, and he slammed his hands down on the floor. 

At first, he expected the wood to bow under his fingers, the way it had every time he'd tried this with the drawn arrays. When the static glanced harmlessly off the surface of the floorboards, he expected the array to simply not work at all. 

He got neither. Instead, very slowly, a wood figure began to form. 

He looked up, desperately seeking out the original array, and gave an astounded sigh when he saw it eating away at the floor around it. 

He’d done it. He’d figured it out.

The transmutation was slow, and far more draining than it should have been for such a simple array, but it  _ worked.  _

  
  
  
  
  


Theo spent the rest of the evening testing his arrays, slowly improving them as he went. Eventually, the transfer got less exhausting, and he managed to get the speed to be slightly more reasonable. It still wasn’t something he could break out in the middle of a fight, like his usual flash-fast techniques, but it was feasible for use in a tight spot. 

That left only one branch of his array to test, and it was the part that really got the anxiety rolling within him.

He didn’t believe in testing on living things, human or animal, but not everything that was  _ alive  _ necessarily had the ability to feel or respond. The boys didn’t have a lot around the house, clearly preferring to spend most of their time at Pinako’s, but there was some fruit in the kitchen. An apple was a good enough test subject, he figured, and carried it to the study to try it out. 

He drew out an array, setting the apple gently on top of it, and crossed the room again. Taking a deep breath, he locked his gaze to the apple, and clapped.

Blue static lit up the room, twice as brilliant as a standard transmutation. The sort of wild, ostentatious effect that usually accompanied major acts, and not the manipulation of a slightly withered apple. 

With the previous transmutations, Theo had taken a moment at the beginning of each to reach out for the items on the other array, pouring energy into the transmutation to reach further and further until finally connecting. This process had gotten easier with each run, but now that progress was lost, the apple refusing to register for him.

He was a second away from dropping the energy to re-examine his methods when the crackling blue light turned to a flash, cutting across his vision and blinding him.

His eyes snapped shut on reflex, recoiling, and suddenly the pull on his soul was gone. The energy from the transmutation neither returned nor dissolved, but simply..stopped. Gone from one moment to the next, in a similar manner to how it had felt…

...No.

He opened his eyes, locking them on Truth’s wide white smile.

“Why?” he breathed out. “Why am I here? I didn’t-...”

“You won’t give up, will you?”

Theo faltered. “Give up what?”

“You’re not a god,” Truth told him. “You’re not even like your father, stuck between worlds. You’re perfectly human, right down to the core.” 

“I know that,” Theo said. “I never-...”

“You do?” Truth interrupted. “You know? Then why do you keep coming here?”

“I didn’t mean to come here,” Theo shot back. “I didn’t do anything to end up here. I was transmuting an  _ apple.”  _

“You were trying to open the gate,” Truth said. “You wanted to pass a living thing through it, because you’re still entertaining the idea that one day,  _ you  _ can go through it.”

Theo’s stomach sank. “I...can’t?”

Truth through its hands out to either side, grin sharp and cruel. “He finally catches on!” it jeered. “I gave you back your alchemy. I gave you an opportunity to make some real changes in your life. Those things are worth much, much more than one tiny human life and one weak Stone, don’t you think?”

“No,” Theo breathed, less in answer and more in horrified realization. “My toll-...you mean…?”

“Your life was your toll,” Truth replied. “Not the beating of your heart or the blood in your veins, but everything that made it yours. You will never go home, Edward. Your home doesn’t exist.”

“But Al-..!”

“Alphonse is a child,” Truth practically sang back at him in taunting. “He’s right next door, waiting for you to come and take him and the  _ other  _ Edward somewhere better. He doesn’t even know that you left him for dead.”

Theo shook his head. “No. No, Al is fine. No way that crackpot alchemist could get the drop on him.” 

“Everything that was is lost,” Truth insisted. “Your brother, as he was, will never exist. If you want Alphonse Elric, congratulations. You get to raise him.”

A sudden chill ran through Theo, as a single thought managed to break through the firm wall of denial he’d put up. “...My family. My  _ kids.” _

“They’ll be born, one day,” Truth said. “But they won’t be yours. Maybe you can raise your double to be a better father than you were. I don’t imagine it’d be hard.”

“You’re lying,” Theo said. “You’re wrong. There’s no way- I can go back. I  _ will  _ go back.”

“No,” Truth replied. “You won’t.”

Theo took a step forward, a shout rising to the tip of his tongue, but he was suddenly back in the study, staring at that  _ fucking _ apple. 

“No,” he breathed out. “No, no, you don’t get to run away, you fucking coward.”

He clapped his hands together and slammed them against the ground, reaching out with his alchemy for the apple again, trying to hunt down whatever had activated the gate for Truth to visit him. 

Blue static filled the air, just as bright and chaotic as the first time, and then there was a flash once more. When he opened his eyes this time, though, he wasn’t in the white space again.

Instead, he was still in the study, and it took him a moment to notice what was different. To notice the splatters across the room, carnage mimicking the horrors he’d seen over the years, the white a stark contrast to the crimson of the blood in his memories. 

The apple had exploded. 

“You fucking…” 

Theo pushed himself up off the floor, stumbling his way out the door, through the house, into the yard. He hit his knees in the dead patches that were once his mother’s garden, heaving through his shaky breathing. The world around him was swimming, his heart was pounding in his chest, and every time his eyes closed all he saw was  _ white _ . 

His brother wasn’t waiting at the edge of the array, after all. That alchemist wasn’t getting his ass kicked by a pissed off Alphonse Elric, because that person was now a child again and waiting across the yard, with a younger Edward Elric who hadn’t yet entirely fucked up his own life. 

A glint caught his eye, and he looked down, lifting his hand from the dirt to watch the moonlight bounce off his ring.

His wedding ring, that he’d only put on because Pinako had asked about it. The damn thing he never bothered to wear. Something he’d put on as a promise, to give half his life in exchange for half of hers, and he’d not given her even a piece of himself in earnest. 

That ring that he’d always pulled off in the hall on the way to see Mustang, because  _ Where’s your ring, Fullmetal  _ had always sounded better than  _ How’s your wife, Ed  _ and he still couldn’t really say why.

Did Winry wear her ring? Did she keep it on when her hands were tired from working on automail and caring for two children all on her own?

He’d never know. Ed might, if he grew up to make all the same mistakes. 

And that was another thing -  _ Ed,  _ the name and life that had once been his, was well and truly lost, and now only existed in the form of a little boy with a mountain of issues and a man whose only strengths were earned through the blood of the ones he loved. 

Who was he, now? Without the hope of home, a distant goal for him to keep in sight as he tried to make at least one world turn a little smoother? 

A fake name he’d assumed, a fake life story with a thousand gaps glaring at him, a ticking time bomb that just waited for him to say something he couldn’t lie he way free of. And that’s all he was, now, just a liar, forcing himself into the midst of a family he didn’t deserve. He hadn’t cared for his own, and now he’d never get the chance.

Which, who was he kidding? He’d never have had a chance. If he’d turned up at his home, ten years of apologies on his lips, what were the chances Winry wouldn’t have just pushed a box of his shit into his hands and told him to hit the road? 

He’d  _ never know.  _

At some point, he’d have to get up. He’d have to cross the yard, and return to Pinako’s. He’d have to take the boys and go to Central and take the stupid entrance exam and become a dog of the military all over again, and he’d have to do it all with the knowledge that he’d given everything he ever loved for the chance to make things a little better for a second iteration of himself. 

At some point, he’d haul his ass across the country and hunt down the first homunculus, hunt down ‘Father,’ and beat the fucker’s face in with all the fury he wished he could direct at Truth instead.

That was all for the future, though. When the world felt a little less broken, and the air around him wasn’t so thin.

For now, though, he grieved, because it was the only thing he could do. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fun fact: i wrote the first half of this on my phone during lunch at work today


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Get up, get pissed, and take something back."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> owo whats this?  
> everyone being hurt by the last chapter fueled me for several days because im a sadistic author  
> also. i appreciate everyone who was willing to go along with my bullshit pseudoscience in the last chapter  
> here's some more Angst + pinako still being unimpressed by these alchemy shenanigans + probably unhealthy life advice + The Boys

When Theo had rushed off to go work on his alchemic experiments, Pinako had expected him to take a while. If he was like the boys - which all signs pointed to being true - he’d get immersed in his work and forget to look up until he realized he was starving or falling asleep. 

She stayed up, then, waiting in the kitchen for his return. She needed to check over his automail again, and make sure the joints were recovering from their cleaning. She  _ also  _ needed to make sure that the man himself was recovering, because she wasn’t certain he’d slept since waking in her house the first time. Checking on Theo would also give her another opportunity to appraise him - no matter how many times they’d spoken, she couldn’t get a gauge for what sort of person he was.

He latched onto Ed and Al with sudden ferocity, but spoke of his own family with distance and insincere sentiments. She got the feeling he was running from something, and she didn’t like it. There was a chance the reason he clung to the boys was that he was using them as a second chance at a family, since he’d botched the first one.

She suspected there was something deeper to his history, specifically regarding his marriage. A man didn’t just  _ forget _ to wear his wedding ring. He spoke of his family so haltingly and so reluctantly, she was half convinced that he didn’t have one at all. A divorce, perhaps, or just a rather thorough separation. If Pinako had a husband that flighty, she certainly wouldn’t keep him around, especially with children involved. 

She could ask him about all those things, she though, when he returned for the night. 

Except, he didn’t.

  
  
  


“There you are.”

Theo raised his eyes off the flower he’d been steadily stripping of petals, looking up to see Pinako frowning down at him.

“You look awful,” she said, simple and matter-of-fact. “I thought you were doing alchemy. Why are you out here in the garden?”

Theo looked back to the mangled flower in his hands. There was some poetic metaphor there, some link between the ugly mess he’d made there and the one he’d made of his life, but he was too tired to form it into a coherent thought. 

“I figured it out,” Theo said, and would have winced at the rough tone of his own voice if it weren’t so  _ exhausting.  _

When had he last slept? Would he even be able to?

“Figured what out?”

Theo shook his head, disgusted. “What my toll was. What I paid to be here.” 

Pinako must have caught the weight behind his admission, because she was quiet for a long moment, before prompting, “What’d it take?”

Just that blunt. Pinako was really a valuable person to have around during his increasingly dire emotional spiral. 

“My family,” Theo said. Pinako sucked in a sharp breath, and he let out a bitter and humorless laugh. “Yeah.”

“And you know for sure?”

Theo tossed the flower aside, finally, having thoroughly exhausted that distraction. “Alchemy all runs through a personal gate, into-...”

“I don’t need the details,” Pinako interrupted, voice so calm and steady Theo couldn’t even consider it rude, just honest. “You’re  _ sure?” _

Theo hesitated, then gave an abrupt nod. “I’m sure. They’re...they’re gone.”

His voice cracked on the last word, and he snapped his mouth shut, fighting against the urge to…

He didn’t even know. Cry? Scream? Be sick again? All of the above? How did a person even react to something like this?

They sat in silence for a while, while Theo mourned and Pinako processed. 

“I’ve lost all my family, short of those three kids,” Pinako eventually said. “No parent should ever outlive their child.”

Theo winced.

“But,” she continued, “We don’t have the choice of who goes, and when. You said you didn’t come here on purpose. If the universe or god or whatever thought that sending you here was worth taking them, then the best thing you can do is make sure you don’t waste it.” She stepped forward, dropping a hand onto his hair, his curled up sitting position putting his head within her reach. “It’s not fair, who we lose. I know  _ fair _ is a thing for you alchemists, but the world doesn’t work that way. Sometimes it just takes. Get up, get pissed, and take something back. That’s all we can do.”

Some people would have told him to move on, while others would have justified his guilt and grief with the reminder that it was, technically, his fault. 

Pinako, though, was a lot like him. Recovery was not easy, and surrender was not an option. The only way they moved forward was to weaponize their pain, to internalize it and turn it into a spiteful force to drive them ever onward.

If he was pressing on, though, he needed to be in motion.

He raised his eyes up to Pinako’s, face hardening into something less devastated and more determined. 

He had things he needed to do. 

“There’s a look,” Pinako muttered. “What is it?”

_ Get up, get pissed, and take something back. _

“How soon can you install the automail port?”

  
  
  
  


“I can’t  _ see  _ anything,” Ed complained loudly, smacking the top of his brother’s head with rapid, yet restrained paps, more a physical protest than an actual attack. “Why aren’t you taller?”

“Why aren’t  _ you?”  _ Al shot back, hand shifting yet again, and Ed made a mental note to kill him as soon as he was fully mobile.

Ed had convinced his brother - through  _ agonizing _ persuasion tactics - to perch him onto his shoulders, so that he could look out the window and try and see where Granny was going. She thought they were asleep, he was pretty sure, so the fact that they heard her  _ leave  _ was weird. He didn’t take her for an evening walk kind of person.

They ran into two problems with this plan: 

One: It was night, and as Ed had mentioned, he couldn’t actually see anything beyond the house’s front yard, and

Two: Al was trying very obviously not to settle his hand anywhere near the severance point of Ed’s missing leg, which resulted in him trying very awkwardly to find a way to stabilize him. 

On one hand, Ed was grateful, because his leg fucking hurt all the time and he didn’t want to add pressure or anything to that.

On the other hand, he was pretty sure the risk of reopening the wound wasn’t the main problem Al was trying to avoid. 

“What are you guys doing?”

Both boys startled, resulting in Ed almost being dislodged from Al’s shoulders. The two stumbled backwards as a unit, Ed scrambling to hold on to Al’s head as the younger boy tried to regain his center of balance. In the process, he must have forgotten his own discomfort in favor of instinct, because his hand finally hit Ed’s thigh to hold him in place properly. Ed, in turn, bit down on the inside of his cheek, because he  _ felt  _ the skin beneath his hand popping back open and starting to bleed again.

Al apparently felt it too, because he quickly began streaming out apologies, backing toward the bed and leaning back to drop Ed onto it.

“Ahh,” he hissed, watching the bandages around his leg start slowly pinking. “Fuck, that hurt.”

He paused, the second the words were out, looking to Al and Winry to see which would be first to scold him for the swear.

Neither said a word. They were both staring in horror at his leg. 

That was going to get old,  _ fast _ . 

“I’m fine,” Ed insisted. “It’s not that bad.”

“You  _ lost  _ your  _ leg.”  _

Ed winced at Winry’s harsh whisper. “I meant the bleeding,” he protested, weakly. 

“...Oh.”

Ed looked down to his bandages. “I’ll be okay, though,” he said. “Don’t worry so much about me. It-...”

He looked at Al, remembering what Theo had said about his own transmutation.

“It could have been a lot worse,” he finished, solemnly, watching Al give a grim nod in agreement. 

“Worse than a  _ leg _ ?” Winry asked, incredulous. “Ed, why did you-...” She stopped, shaking her head. “Nevermind. I guess-...I guess if I thought I could get my parents back, I would have tried something stupid, too.”

“It wasn’t  _ stupid,”  _ Ed immediately defended. 

“It was a little stupid,” Al countered. “No one has ever completed a successful human transmutation, but we thought that  _ we  _ could.”

“That we  _ know  _ about,” Ed amended. “No one has  _ recorded  _ a successful human transmutation. It could be possible. I thought I might have seen the way, in the gate, but it wouldn’t let me-....”

“Ed,  _ stop,”  _ Al cut him off. “You heard Theo. It’s not worth it.”

Ed faltered, looking helplessly to his brother. “...Then what? We follow him around like puppies until he leaves? He won’t stay forever, Al.” 

“We’ll figure that out,” Al said. “We don’t have to know everything right away.”

Ed didn’t like the concept of unknowns, but Al had a point. They had plenty of time to plan their own lives, especially if Theo had a plan for their immediate future already in place.

“We’ll stick together, then,” Ed declared. “No matter what, right, Al?”

Al gave a firm nod. “No matter what.”

“I’m with you guys, too!” Winry added. “Ed’s gonna get an automail leg, and I’m gonna make sure I’m the best mechanic ever, so I can take care of it. And you two won’t be able to get rid of me, even if you  _ do _ have to go far away.”

Ed grinned, looking to the other two, taking a moment to appreciate their easy acceptance.

Pinako was right, after all - how could he have ever thought he didn’t have family?

The sound of the front door opening interrupted them.

“Ah, she’s back!” Ed whisper-shouted. “Pretend to sleep!”

“Too late.”

Ed winced, looking over to the doorway, where a very tired looking Theo and an amused Pinako were standing.

“You three are a menace,” Pinako informed them. “Get to bed, all of you.  _ Especially  _ you two- did you reopen your leg? And that’s not even your bed.” She crossed the room, tutting as she went. “Theo, help me move him back, would you?”

Theo crossed the room without comment, scooping Ed up like he weighed nothing. Ed flushed, embarrassed at behind hauled around like some little kid, and smacked a pillow down over his own face the second he was laid back down.

“Stay like that,” Pinako said, taking a seat beside his bed. “I’m going to have to undo your bandages to check on the bleeding, because you lot can’t sit still for five minutes.”

Ed grimaced into the pillow as she started peeling the bindings away.

“Theo,” she called out, as she worked, “There’s a guest room upstairs. Take it. You’ll probably get a lot better sleep there than with these two around.”

“I’ll stay, actually,” Theo answered, the quiet murmur almost inaudible beyond the muffling of the pillow. “I don’t really want to be by myself.”

Ed pulled the pillow down, so that the very top of it pressed against his mouth still, but his eyes were free to peak at his mysterious half-brother. 

He looked...really bad. Was he sick?

“Suit yourself,” Pinako said. “You hear that, boys? He’s staying in here, so if you two aren’t going to sleep, at least shut up about it. He needs rest just as much as you two do.”

“We’ll be quiet!” Al promised immediately, the traitor. “Ed needs to sleep, too.”

Ed freed his mouth from the pillow by chucking it at Al. “ _ You _ need sleep!”

“You  _ all  _ need sleep,” Pinako agreed. “Everyone shut up and get working on it.” She tied off his bandages, patting the edge of his leg and tossing the blanket over him. “Good night, brats.”

Ed was pretty sure she was talking to him and Al, but all three of them echoed back a  _ good night.  _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> truth, sitting in front of the gate, eating pringles: yall are a fuckin Riot


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Why had he come? He couldn’t remember.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was a pain and im not super happy with it but. here it is. the last of the risembool affairs before i throw theo into the actual plot!  
> the beginning is probably confusing so i'll explain before you even get to it: theo's dreaming. the dream changes in the middle and he doesn't really notice because it was a super weird dream to begin with and sleepin brains dont usually catch onto stuff like that

The ruins of Xerxes sprawled out around him, crumbling buildings looming in every direction. The lingering aura of death and evil lurked behind every corner, but that could have very well been his own knowledge of the horrors that went on here.

Why had he come? He couldn’t remember.

Uncertain of his own motivations, he moved slowly through the ruins, ducking under fallen columns and navigating unstable buildings as he went. There was something up ahead, he thought, but couldn’t recall what it was. Just that he needed to press on, seeking it out, because _that_ was what he was here for.

Just a little further. If he moved quickly, he could get there in time.

In time for what? Why was he in such a hurry?

Was that a _person?_

He rushed forward, chasing after the spectre in the distance. They disappeared behind a corner, and he followed after.

The second he rounded the edge, he almost ran over a person walking by. Not the same person, it didn’t look like, just a regular citizen. They were filling the streets, all going about their own business, ducking in an out of the shops around them as they ran their daily errands.

Where had the man gone? The tall one, who he’d followed here?

He couldn’t wait here to find out. He weaved through the crowd, eyes sharp, looking for that man again.

His aimless steps carried him to a pavillion, and he stepped within it.

A large wall rose at the back of it. In front of it stood a young man - _the_ man, the one he’d followed here. He was scrawling something on the walls.

He took a step forward, ready to call out, but his movement was met with a blue spark. He looked down, taking in the array he’d just stepped into.

It looked familiar. So, so familiar. What was it? What did it do? The array was too big to look at all at once, and each time he turned his head he found he forgot the lines he couldn’t actively see.

“Welcome home,” a voice called to him. His head snapped up, looking to the man.

He - _it -_ had a circle on its forehead, the image of a snake devouring its own tail, and below it his eyes glowed red.

“You almost missed it,” the thing said. “Theophrastus.”

Purple static erupted around him, and his vision was bleached out in the flash.

  
  


Theo’s eyes snapped open, heart in his throat, but the only thing that he could see was the ceiling of the patient room. He instantly looked to the side, seeking out Al out of habit, but the bed beside him was empty.

He shot up, scrambling out of bed to look around, trying to figure out where he might have gone. In the mad rush, he turned again, toward his own bed.

On the other side of it, Ed and Al were both asleep, curled up on Ed’s bed.

Theo let out a heavy, relieved sigh, that turned into a yawn midway through. He was still tired, but after that dream, he doubted he would get more sleep. It hadn’t been a nightmare, necessarily, but it had been unsettling.

The sound of Father saying ‘ _Welcome home’_ was most likely going to haunt him for a while. Same with the sound of his own name.

Because it was his name, now. If his family was gone, no longer existed, then with them went the original Edward Elric. There was only one of those, here, and he was an eleven year old boy desperate for family of his own.

Theo couldn’t get in the way of that, but he could try to help provide it. The character was simple enough to play, he just had to accept that his life prior to the transmutation that sent him there was null and void.

He would grieve for the things he’d lost, all the hard work he’d wasted, but...if he was lucky, he could ensure a better future for _this_ Ed.

He tried not to think about how rarely he was ever _lucky._

  
  
  


Pinako wasn’t even surprised when she came down to the kitchen the next morning to find Theo already up and about. The breakfast he’d prepared was unexpected, but she supposed he’d had to have something to do while he waited.

“Did you sleep at all?” she asked, snatching up a piece of bacon to munch on.

“A little,” Theo replied. “Enough to be awake right now.”

“Hm.” She eyed the faint dark smudges of skin under his eyes, but didn't call him out on them. He'd likely have trouble sleeping for a good while. Instead, she prompted him, “So you made breakfast?”

Theo looked almost sheepish at the direct confrontation. “I don't handle sitting still very well.”

She'd noticed. Again, she kept any comments to herself.

“You'll be heading into town with me, again, today.”

Theo caught his own grimace admirably quickly, but she still saw it.

“Two days in a row should be good for a week or so,” Pinako assured him. “You’ll be free to do whatever you'd like while Ed recovers.”

“And when..?”

“I’ll see how he feels about having the port put on tomorrow,” she said. “I'm sure he's just as eager to get on with it as you are.”

She watched some of the tension bleed out of Theo, his shoulders relaxing a bit as he set about finishing his breakfast preparations. Her mind turned to the traumas he’d apparently endured in his life, and he eyes trailed down, looking to his hand.

His finger had red patches surrounding his wedding ring, signs of wear from the anxious fiddling he’d done with it since finding out what happened to his wife.

She didn’t understand alchemy, not even a little, but Theo seemed to believe that his family had been killed by it. She couldn’t see how moving a man from one place to another would equal in value to an entire family’s lives, but he acted as though it were perfectly sensible, so she wouldn’t look too far into it.

Theo had something dark about him, in his casual disregard for practically everything that got brought up around him, in his razor-sharp wit that latched onto utter nonsense and dragged out something feasible, in his desperation to care for Ed and Al. Theo had spoken of his plans to stay with them as though extended time from his family were something inevitable, rather than a price to pay, and she worried as to why that was. Perhaps his family was not close to him. Maybe he’d gotten divorced, and just didn’t like to say anything about it. Maybe he’d been getting close to that point. Maybe, maybe, _maybe_ a lot of things, and each and every one made just as much sense as the last, leaving her with far more questions than answers.

She didn’t want to know much, so she didn’t intend to ask any of the things that crossed her mind each time Theo said or did anything. Instead, she narrowed her focus down to the one thing she _needed_ to know.

“About this deal,” Pinako said. “You said the agreement was for that man-...”

“Mustang,” Theo offered. “Colonel Mustang. The Flame Alchemist.”

“Mustang,” Pinako allowed. “For him to take care of the boys, to keep them safe. Safe from those things you were talking about? That mess your father is mixed up in?”

“From-...” Theo started, then stopped, then began again. “It’s not really safe to talk about it, much, but the person I’m going after has a lot of power, and a plan to give himself even more. And that plan needs strong alchemists, ones that can see the gate and make it out alive. Alchemists who have performed human transmutation.”

“And Ed and Al fit the bill,” she filled in. “So, what do they want with them? If they were caught…?”

“They’d be kept alive,” Theo replied, and then offered no further details.

She knew better than to ask for them. Given that he’d explained a genocide without hesitation, she definitely didn’t want to know what he _wasn’t_ saying.

Instead, she nodded, and looked toward the door of the patient room. “Should I get the boys up, or are we just going to leave this out for them whenever they wake up on their own?”

“I’ll cover it up and leave it for them,” Theo said. “Let them sleep.”

“Alright, then.” She turned from him, heading to dig through her things to get ready for the day’s trip into town. “We’ll set off in a minute, then.”

Not too soon, though. She’d take her time getting her stuff together. The more time she spent speaking to Theo, the more she learned, the harder it got to keep up.

What she knew, though, without a doubt, was that _she_ didn’t know enough to keep the boys safe, if some evil thing was truly after them. Theo presumably did, and so she’d have to trust him.

She’d lost enough family.

  
  
  


The second and final day of town doctoring was just as boring as the first, made even worse by the fact that no one needed to be introduced to him this time, meaning he didn’t even have questions to answer or pleasantries to offer. Luckily, it was over quickly, Pinako having rightly predicted that not many people needed her with a visit having been made just the day before.

Once they headed back to the Rockbell house to find the three children in it awake and about, Pinako proposed the automail port installation to Ed, who agreed without hesitation.

Theo rounded off the last of his day with alchemy research, picking through his array in the backyard, not yet willing to return to the Elric house and his failed apple test.

His exhaustion and poor night’s sleep combined to allow him to rest that night, as well, meaning that he was well rested to sit with Al as they waited for Ed’s surgery to be complete.

It went perfectly smoothly, the port attaching without even minor rejection, just as Theo remembered from his own. He wondered if it was because of how short the span between injury and surgery was, or if it was because of how perfectly clean the amputation of an alchemy rebound was.

It didn’t really matter. He didn’t intend for it to happen again. Twice was already too many times for him to lose a leg.

What _did_ matter was that whatever it was, it made the recovery process perfectly smooth, meaning Theo only had to spend five days doing backyard alchemy tests and perfecting his new array before Pinako deemed Ed fit for travel.

At last, they could make progress. They could begin the effort toward a better life than the one Theo had lived.

Pinako had told him not to waste the opportunity that was given to him, and she would never know the depth of meaning those words had. She would, however, know that Theo took them to heart, because he intended to make every second this world ticked by mean something.

‘Father’ had better be ready, because Theo was coming for him.

  
  
  


“You guys have to call me every day!”

Ed let out a loud groan, slumping back, and Al quickly wheeled him backwards to get his wheelchair out of Winry’s striking range.

“I mean it,” she insisted. “If you don’t talk to me at least once a day I’m gonna come up there and beat you up.”

“ _Every_ day?” Ed whined. “I don’t like talking on the phone. Can’t we call, like, once a week?”

“Every. Single. Day,” she told him, poking his chest with each word. “Granny, tell them they have to call me every day.”

“You’re paying my phone bill, brat,” Pinako replied.

“I’ll pay it,” Theo offered, only half joking. “We’ll check in as often as we can, I’ll make sure of it.”

Ed sighed, looking up to his brother - the younger one, tasked with pushing his chair, not the older half-brother who’d sold them out - with a look of sheer exasperation. “Alright, alright, we’ll call. We’re not even going that far away.”

“Central is _forever_ away,” Winry said.

“Theo said we’re not staying in Central, though!” Al reminded her. “That’s just where the test is. Colonel Mustang is stationed in East City- right, Theo?”

Winry frowned up at Theo, who resisted the strong urge to duck behind something in response. “How far away is that?”

“About 50km to the North,” Pinako informed her. “Only an hour by train, unless you stop off somewhere else along the way.”

“Oh.” Winry pursed her lips, visibly considering the new information. “That’s not so bad, I guess.”

“I’ll make them call anyway,” Theo promised her. With her seemingly satisfied by that, he turned his attention to Pinako instead. “Thank you, for everything. It means a lot that you were so willing to help.”

“Board the stupid train and go join the military, brat,” Pinako shot back. “Don’t act like this is some teary goodbye, when you’re going to have to come right back here in a month or so for me to take the measurements for Ed’s leg.”

Theo laughed. “Alright, that’s fair,” he allowed. “I’ll see you then, I guess.”

“See you.” She turned to the boys, adding, “And you two had best _behave._ Theo looks like a pushover-...”

“Hey!”

“...but if you act up, I’ll know, and I’ll pop you both for it when I see you next. Got it?”

“Got it!” Both boys echoed back.

Only when their goodbyes were finished and they were settled on the train did Theo take the time to process why she’d needed to give that threat.

He was the sole guardian of a two children, and he had basically zero knowledge of parenting due to having barely been involved in the growth of his own kids.

He was so, _so_ fucked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo: gotta save the kids gotta help the kids gotta take the kids to central gotta-  
> also theo: how the fuck do you interact with a child


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids had no concept of age. Everyone older than their teens was old.
> 
> ...Dammit, he sounded like a grandpa. He really couldn’t win.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More boys!!! More weird dreams!! Truth!  
> This is mostly a filler chapter but there's some internal struggle content on Theo's part to close the gap between actual plot points
> 
> Other things: I realized in the middle of writing the last scene of this chapter that I fucked up Elicia's birthday and that Gracia is supposed to only be like 4 weeks pregnant right now but! In Clerical Errors I made her 3 right off the bat so it's pretty clear that I Just Don't Care

Ed’s face had been pinched and pale for the last few minutes, and Theo realized he should probably say something, instead of just feeling bad for the kid.

“The train’s vibrating your port, right?” he asked. “It’s not as bad when there’s a leg attached, because you can brace against the ground to keep it still. Try hanging it off the edge of the seat. That should ease it off a little.”

Ed’s leg immediately shifted to comply, and appeared instantly relieved. “Thanks.”

“No problem. Automail makes losing a limb a lot easier, but it’s not exactly fun.”

Ed’s eyes turned down to Theo’s knee, as though he were just remembering the metal that was concealed there. “...How old were you?”

Theo grimaced. Some coincidences couldn’t be shrugged off so easily, so he dodged the question, only offering, “The first time? Young. Way too young.”

Ed seemed to accept the answer, probably understanding he didn’t want to talk about it, and turned to look out the window instead.

Beside him, Al perked up a bit, jumping on the chance to learn more about their mysterious brother. “As young as us?”

“Older than you,” Theo said, which was technically not a lie, given he was speaking directly to Alphonse. “Not by much, though.”

“How old are you now?” 

Theo's nose crinkled, and he offered, “Twenty-nine.”

Ed turned away from the window, and the two young boys exchanged a look that Theo pretended he didn’t know meant  _ shit, that’s old.  _ Kids had no concept of age. Everyone older than their teens was old. 

...Dammit, he sounded like a grandpa. He really couldn’t win.

Slumping back in his seat, Theo offered a casual dismissal of, “Train rides are easiest when unconscious. I’m gonna nap the rest of the way. They can wake me when it’s time to go bother Mustang again.” 

After a week of restlessness and anxiety, sleep on the familiar rumble of a moving train came easily. 

  
  
  


The sea of dress uniforms and extravagant dresses that marked various officers and their trophy wives extended out in a seemingly endless sprawl, leaving Theo stranded in the center. 

_ I remember this,  _ he realized, catching sight of Riza Hawkeye in the distance, shaking hands with some Brigadier General he couldn’t remember the name of.  _ This was Hawkeye’s promotion dinner.  _

As he watched, Riza excused herself, turning instead to approach him.

“Evening,  _ Major,”  _ he heard himself greet her. “Quite the party, huh?”

“Half these people have never spoken to me before in my life,” she muttered to him, once close enough. “And never will again. I hate politics.” 

Theo felt himself grin at her. “They can’t risk offending a certain General.” At her snort, he continued, “Where is Mustang, anyway? Maybe now with you promoted, he’ll actually go after the Fuhrership.”

Riza’s eyebrows came together in a pinched look of confusion. “Ed…”

“What?” he laughed. “Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed him waiting on you.”

Riza shook her head. “No, Edward,” she said. “It’s not  _ me _ he’s waiting on.” 

A call of her name had here looking away, excusing herself quietly, and she was gone before he could ask anything else.

That had been the last time he’d seen her, he realized. She’d moved to intelligence, last he’d heard, and made it her personal mission to stop anything getting in or out of Mustang’s office without her approval. 

He’d never asked what she meant, and he’d never figured it out.

The words seemed to echo in the hall, and as he watched, decorations and bureaucracy and the general stuffy atmosphere all began to fade, bleeding back into a white void that was becoming uncomfortably familiar. 

“What did you lose?”

The chorus of voices surrounded him, and he looked around, searching for any break in the blank white around him that might mark its source. Just as he’d given up, stopping his search, a single blink had the void being interrupted with a looming gate and a grinning Truth. 

“Is this real?” Theo asked. “Or just a dream?”

“What’s the difference?” Truth countered. “Either I want you to see it, or  _ you  _ want you to see it. Either way, keep your eyes open.”

“I don’t have time for your philosophy shit,” Theo snapped. “If you’ve got something to say, spit it out, and let me leave. I’m sick of this place. I’m sick of  _ you.”  _

“And I,” Truth replied, “am tired of your attitude. I gave you everything, you know, and you wasted it.”

_ “Everything?” _ Theo echoed, somewhere between outrage and disbelief. “You took my leg, my arm, my  _ brother,  _ my  _ alchemy,  _ and now my family! What did you ever give me?”

“Opportunity!” Truth said, sounding almost just as angry. “Your wife loved you! Your children idolized you! Your brother respected you! Your friends understood you! All you ever had to do was reach out and take what was right in front of you, but you got  _ lazy.”  _

“Lazy?!”

“Yes!” Truth’s perpetual grin was sharp, almost predatory, and the gate seemed to grow behind him as an ominous air pressed down on Theo. “You were so comfortable in the guarantee of their love, knowing they would see the best in you no matter what, that you no longer felt the need to earn it. You were demanding to be treated as a man you no longer were.”

Theo took a step back, trying to free himself from the feeling of being cornered, but ended up tripping, landing on the ground as Truth loomed over him. 

“And then you come here,” Truth continued. “You come into my domain, into a space without pretenses or falsities, and you demand the same of me. You speak, and you expect me to listen.”

“I didn’t-...” Theo started, a million defenses on the tip of his tongue, but Truth did not listen. Instead, his chin was grabbed and tipped up, bruising force maintaining what would have been eye contact if Truth actually had any features beyond teeth. 

“A man comes to me to make a deal,” Truth said. “He comes bearing all, ready to trade whatever I want from him. And you get in the way. You expect me to listen to  _ you,  _ more than him, because even after all this time, you don’t get it. Even when I stripped you of everything you’d come to take for granted, and reminded you where you came from, still you come here and expect me to answer to your whims. Designing arrays and working out theories, trying to get me under your control.  _ You are not a god,  _ Edward Elric.”

He was released, but when he tried to speak, his throat closed up instead. 

“So I ask again,” Truth said. “What. Did. You _. Lose?” _

Behind Truth, the gate opened, and the figure began backing into it. 

“Think on it,” he said. “Next time I see you, you’d best have an answer.”

  
  


  
Theo jolted awake, the sound of the gate slamming shut echoing in his ears.

Across from him, Ed and Al were slumped together, the elder having propped his stump leg up on the seat and then followed it to lay flat, head on his brother’s lap. Al, in turn, had his face pressed against the window, leaving a faint fog on the glass with each breath. Both were, by the looks of it, sound asleep. 

_ What did you lose?  _

He wasn’t sure if that was a dream, or a real visit to that place, or something in between, but it had shaken him. The ominous warnings were unsettling, but worse than that, he could hear nothing but - ironically -  _ truth  _ in the words about his life. 

He had taken his family for granted. He had become so certain they would forgive him anything that he saw no consequences. 

And, for all his lectures and philosophy, he had been the one repeatedly ignoring his own warnings, treading the path of a god without care, because some part of him saw himself as an exception to the rule. Men were not gods,  _ except.  _ Men could not control life and death,  _ except.  _ Everything had consequences,  _ except.  _

_ I gave you everything,  _ Truth had said, and as much as Theo wanted to argue, he really couldn’t. Each thing he’d given up had been a price he paid, and in the end, he’d made the call of what he could live without and what he couldn’t. He’d chosen Al over alchemy, and set himself to building a family where once he’d only looked to build an identity. 

Wanderlust never left him, though, and he’d always wondered if he was pretending. If, in truth, he built a family because he didn’t know what else to do. If he’d surrounded himself with others just because he couldn’t stand to be alone.

He looked at the boys across from him again, studying them, memorizing every detail. If these two grew up healthy and happy and whole, would that settle the screaming in his head that he was standing too still, waiting too long? Would taking care of them give him the sense of purpose he’d been searching for since the Promised Day? 

Something occurred to him, then, and he looked out the window, trying to gauge roughly where they were - how far they were from Central. 

If Truth had been commanding that dream, what was the point in the memory he’d seen first? Why remind him of Hawkeye’s words? Was it a nudge in the right direction? A confirmation that Mustang was the starting point for making things work? 

Maybe the powers that be genuinely wanted political reform in Amestris. Or, more likely, Truth was waiting for him to drive himself insane at the bastard’s beck and call. 

The speakers crackled to life as the conductor announced their closing in on Central City, and he let out a relieved sigh. No more time to worry himself to death - it was time to wake the boys, and start on the path he’d found himself on.

He just hoped that the end held redemption, rather than ruin.

  
  
  
  


Risembool was a tight-knit community made mostly of retirees and their visiting grandchildren, which made it very hard to plant an informant there. Luckily, retirees were some of the biggest gossips known to mankind, and so it was much easier to just have someone stop through as a “tourist” and listen out for a bit.

It was in this manner that Maes was informed when their mystery man boarded a train to Central, and so he was able to head to the train station - refusing to let Roy go by himself, because he wanted to meet this weird scientist that had everybody so excited. 

Roy watched the train as passengers began to disembark, scanning each face, as though he somehow wouldn’t immediately recognize the distinct features of the alchemist they were waiting for. 

He didn’t see him first, though. Instead, when he caught sight of gold, he looked toward it to see a young boy peeking out of a train window. 

His eyes were wide in the brief interim before he jerked backwards and vanished, likely being pulled back from the window by a concerned parent. 

Or an annoyed sibling, Roy amended, when a second boy’s face appeared a moment later, round gold eyes peering through the glass on either side of the nose he’d smushed against it. 

His face disappeared after a second, as well, and he could see movement behind it. As soon as it stopped, he turned, looking to the train door instead to wait.

He was rewarded by the appearance of the young kids - the first pushing the second in a wheelchair, which had them stopping at the edge of the train steps, at a loss for how to proceed. Annoyed passengers rushing to get off dodged around them for a few seconds, before finally,  _ finally,  _ Roy caught sight of Theo.

The man moved fluidly and without hesitation, reaching down to scoop the boy out of the wheelchair and carry him to the platform, the other child following close behind with the wheelchair itself. 

“There,” Roy said, nudging Maes. “The-...”

“I see him,” Maes cut off. “Those kids...They’re too old to be his. There was enough discrepancy in the stories of ‘Hohenheim’ that there could be two. Him, and - presumably - their father. Makes more sense that way, actually.”

“How so?”

“Some of the stories I heard are from things that happened a long while back,” Maes explained. “There were tales of miracle healing alchemy and crazy big stunts as far back as twenty years ago - that guy couldn’t have even been in his teens.”

“So we’re looking at three generations of alchemists,” Roy summarized. 

“Well, literally speaking,” Maes said, “we’re looking at two. And they’re coming this way. Smile!”

Roy straightened up, just as he saw Theo catch sight of them. 

The look on his face was hard to place, caught between wonder and annoyance, both expressions beyond comprehension for Roy.

“Theo Van Hohenheim!” Maes greeted loudly. “It’s so good to meet you!”

As he stopped in front of them, he winced. “Just...call me Theo,” he corrected. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

“This is Lieutenant Colonel Maes Hughes,” Roy introduced. “And these must be Edward and Alphonse Elric, right?”

“My half-brothers,” Theo confirmed. 

“Oh, hello!” Maes greeted, dropping to a crouch to grin at them from close to eye-level. “Two young boys. I might have a son of my own, soon, you know! Or a daughter. Or something else entirely!” He reached into his coat, pulling out a stack of photos, flashing the top one - a picture of a very pregnant Gracia - at them. “This is my wife! Isn’t she lovely?”

Roy looked back to Theo, ready to apologize for his friend’s behavior, only to catch a wistful look on the man’s face instead. 

“Don’t humor him,” Roy warned. “If you don’t resist from the start, he’ll never stop pulling those out. I don’t think there’s an end to them.”

“I wouldn’t mind,” Theo said.

“Famous last words,” Roy muttered in response, but Theo wasn’t paying him any attention.

Curious. Everything about this man was just... _ curious.  _

He couldn’t wait to learn more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> roy: ugh dont mind my friend hes super annoying  
> theo, outraged: i would die for him


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc,” he introduced. “Havoc, this is Theo Van Hohenheim.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope everyone had a good holiday!! Heres a chapter i wrote on my phone xoxo

Jean Havoc wasn’t really having a great week.

First, Mustang got promoted, which made him an insufferable prick for a good few days. Second, the newly-named Colonel had apparently found some genius alchemist to join their team, and so he had to pack up on the shortest notice ever so that he could be their designated pack mule for however long it took the exams to be over. Third, the only other member of their team to come along was Falman, who was no fun at all while working.

And, finally, there was this: he’d been dragged along to act as driver for the new alchemist guy, who was approaching him now with fucking  _ kids.  _

“Havoc!” Mustang called out, looking mighty pleased with himself, that  _ shit,  _ before ignoring him in favor of talking to the new guy _.  _ “Second Lieutenant Jean Havoc,” he introduced. “Havoc, this is Theo Van Hohenheim.”

The guy twitched, like something about that introduction annoyed him, and Jean took a minute to assess the man in front of him.

First thing he noticed? The guy was  _ pretty.  _ There was one more person he could never introduce a date to, because this guy was all shades of gold and copper and fuckin’  _ sculpted,  _ and he was absolutely fucked if he ever had to go against him. 

The second thing he noticed was that this ‘Hohenheim’ dude must have been pretty strong, because he was holding, like, three bags. Probably his and the kids’, which made sense, since one of those kids was in a  _ wheelchair,  _ and the other one was pushing said chair around. 

And that brought him to the third, and most important thing: kids. 

“Hey,” Havoc said, catching Mustang’s attention. Without a word, he just raised an eyebrow and nodded towards the kids, figuring he’d get the message.

Mustang didn’t answer, though - Hohenheim did. “Edward and Alphonse Elric. My half-brothers.” He shifted his absurd burden of bags all onto one shoulder to free up a hand to extend to Jean. “And just call me Theo. Seriously.”

The last bit was said with a pointed side-eye to Mustang, which gave Jean the impression that this was probably not the first time it had been said. 

Plenty of guys preferred a first-name basis, though, so Jean shrugged it off, shaking Theo’s hand instead. “So, you’re the alchemist the Colonel’s been going on about?”

Rather than look flattered that Mustang had mentioned him - which was the usual reaction from military personnel and science-y types they ran into - Theo looked somewhere between amused and heavily annoyed, offering a flat and bland, “That’s me.”

So, it seemed the good impression Theo had made on Mustang was mostly one-sided. Interesting, considering pretty much everybody else found themselves firmly up the Colonel’s ass within an hour of meeting him. 

Mustang apparently  _ also  _ caught that, because he interrupted, “We were thinking of discussing the details of the exam at Hughes’ house, rather than anywhere public. Havoc will drive you there.”

To Havoc’s surprise, Theo didn’t even hesitate, offering a lazy “Sure, thanks,” and going to toss his bags into the back of the car Jean was leaning against. The kids seemed a little more hesitant, the one in the wheelchair looking up at him with a suspicious squint.

“Uh,” he faltered, trying to think of how one went about talking to kids. “Hey?”

“Hello!” the boy behind the wheelchair chirped, pushing down on the handles of the chair to make it pop off the ground a bit and drop back down, jostling the kid in it. “I’m Al, and this is Ed.”

Ed ignored them both in favor of squirming around in his chair, probably trying to get re-situated after being knocked around in what had certainly looked like a reprimanding gesture.

“...I’m gonna get in the car,” Jean decided. Before he turned to leave, he shot one last glance at Mustang, assessing his reaction to the whole thing.

He looked like he was trying not to laugh. 

_ Asshole _ .

  
  
  
  


Seeing Havoc again was interesting, Theo being momentarily thrown by the lack of lines on his face and the fact that he had to look up to speak again, because 170cm still wasn't enough to be eye level with the man when he wasn't in a wheelchair. Watching him flounder his way through introductions with children was also pretty entertaining - he'd never taken much time to think how his being in the military had affected the way people saw him, but it was clear that his past self and his new younger alternate were going to have very different experiences with the same people, given that Ed and Al were not acting as emancipated minors so much as regular kids. 

The only problem  _ that  _ brought up was that Ed was thoroughly offended by how uneasy Havoc was, and that made the whole drive to the Hughes house sort of awkward, as no one had anything to say that was worth speaking up and breaking the silence. 

Luckily, the drive wasn't long. 

Now all Theo had to do was interact with Maes Hughes for an extended period of time without doing something embarrassing, like crying over the fact that the man had been dead for years and it had been at least  _ mostly _ his fault. 

Simple. 

  
  
  
  


When Havoc parked the car in front of Maes’ house, Roy met them at its side immediately, and yet was still somehow too late to get to the back of it before Theo had already loaded himself down with every bag the three had brought with them. 

“Let me help,” Roy offered, tucking two fingers under the strap of one of the bags.

Theo eyed him, starting as a wary look and slowly turning into something sly. “Okay,” he said, and Roy had about four seconds to wonder what that coquettish tone meant before Theo let go of the bag. 

Roy grunted as Theo's bag dropped, the full weight astronomically higher than he'd anticipated. As he fumbled to get a better grip on it, he heard why, as well - somewhere in the bag, he heard thuds and the clanging of  _ metal _ , because of course Roy would have reached for the bag that did not just contain normal clothes or travel gear. 

In front of him, Theo let out a loud laugh, quickly taking the bag back. “Sorry,” he said, not actually sounding sorry at all. “That's mine. Alchemy research stuff. Couldn't resist.”

Roy tried not to think too hard about the fact that Theo held the bag like it was nothing, and instead focused on wondering what kind of ‘alchemy research’ required a bag full of metal. 

“Why am I getting these out, anyway?” Theo asked. “Are we crashing here for the night? I didn't actually think about what we were going to do until the exams.” 

“Luckily, we did!” Maes’ cheery voice chimed in from somewhere over Roy's shoulder. “You three are welcome to stay with us while you're in Central. We prepared a room for Roy, but he never actually uses it.”

Only a madman would willingly expose himself to Maes’ mothering 24/7, but Roy wasn't about to say that in front of a man he was asking to do just that. Instead, he offered, “Maybe you should start putting mints on your pillows.”

To his side, Theo snorted, and Roy felt a bit of pride at the fact that it could be considered the second laugh he'd gotten out of the man. This one wasn't even at his expense. Theo was hard to get a read on, meeting every move Roy made with indifference, refusing to be impressed by anything. It was a unique challenge, trying to figure out how to win him over, beyond just taking care of the kids - kids which he now knew to be Theo's  _ brothers,  _ thanks to Havoc being entirely unsubtle. Half-brothers, specifically, and with an age gap that suggested at least one of them was an accident. 

None of that was relevant, though. What  _ was  _ relevant was that the younger two were the key to gaining the elder's loyalty, and everything he’d seen suggested Theo's loyalty was something he could definitely use. 

“Well,” Maes said, bringing the conversation back to topic. “You're welcome to stay with us, is the point.”

“I'll check with Al...and, uh, Ed, and I'll see how they feel. I don't want them to be uncomfortable.”

Roy wasn't sure if the implication was that Theo  _ would  _ be comfortable there, or that his discomfort was not a priority. Or, possibly, both. 

It seemed likely it would be both. 

“No rush,” Maes said. “If you'd rather wait to decide until later tonight, we don't really need any advance notice if you're staying or not, so long as we know by the time we go to bed. You guys can make sure we aren't, y'know, serial killers or anything.”

“I'm really not worried about it,” Theo said, in a low tone that suggested the comment was more to himself than to them. Roy wondered if that was because he was confident in his own ability to protect the boys, or if it was just a classic case of someone underestimating Maes’ ability to be dangerous based on his general puppylike charm. 

Maes didn't react to it either way, just pat Roy's shoulder and announced, “I'll let Gracia know we're home! Riza will probably come out to meet you, too.”

Roy grimaced as his friend disappeared, because Riza would likely still be mad about him leaving her there when they went to the train station. Or, maybe not  _ mad,  _ but definitely annoyed. They already had too many people for one car, though, and Riza got twitchy in crowds. It was just easier to leave her with Gracia while they picked up Theo. He'd pay for the convenience, he was sure, but it had seemed the best option at the time. 

His expression must have been comical, because when he looked to Theo, the man seemed to be holding back another laugh. 

“Hawkeye, right?” Theo asked. “Are you in trouble?”

“Usually,” Roy muttered in response, which got the laugh out into the air. In an effort to change the subject away from his humiliation, he asked, “What's in your bag that's so heavy?”

“Oh,” Theo looked down to the bag hanging off his shoulder, like he'd forgotten about it entirely. “Books, mostly. I stole most of my dad's journals and notes before we left.”

“And what was the metal clanking around?”

“You're nosy,” Theo muttered, but answered anyway, “I salvaged a piece from this old suit of armor in the house. I want to make it into a cuff.”

“A cuff?” 

Theo met the confusion with an amused smile. “If I wear a brace on my arm, that's metal I can easily transmute into a weapon whenever I need one. I used to do it all the time, but I, uh...don't have that thing anymore. So I need a new one.”

Roy raised an eyebrow. “You used to fight often?”

“I  _ still _ fight often,” Theo corrected. “I just had to find new ways to beat guys up for a while.” 

Not for the first time, Roy wondered if he was in over his head with this one. 

“Hey, Theo?”

Theo and Roy both jerked their heads around to look where Ed was hanging partly out of the car window. 

“Can we get out of the car now?”

“Shit, yeah, sorry,” Theo said, moving to start helping them out. 

Roy took that as his cue to go, leaving the little family to sort themselves out. 

The exam wasn't for a little over a week, which meant Roy had a good while to get to know this man, starting with this dinner. And, potentially loose canon or not, Theo was interesting. However the next few days went, he had a good feeling that things were never going to be the same. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> last chapter:  
> Truth: why are you like this  
> Theo, who developed clinical depression at age 4, ptsd at age 11, and c-ptsd at 18, none of which were ever treated or even properly adressed: idk im just a piece of shit i guess lol
> 
> this chapter:   
> Havoc: who is this  
> Theo: last name ever, first name greatest


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Opinionated' got thrown around with topics like religion (which Ed found to be nonsense), politics (because the government was pretty gross, from what he'd seen), and food (milk was disgusting, and that was the hill he would die on).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (edward elric voice) hey ive noticed that you care about me and id like to know kindly Why The Fuck

Edward was what some people - mostly meaning grumpy old people - called “opinionated.”

“Opinionated,” he'd discovered over the years, was the grumpy old person way of declaring him an independent thinker, except that it usually meant they thought he was wrong.  _ Opinionated _ got thrown around with topics like religion (which Ed found to be nonsense), politics (because the government was pretty gross, from what he'd seen), and food (milk was disgusting and that was the hill he would die on). 

The fun thing about  _ opinionated  _ was that, while it referenced a person having  _ opinions,  _ it meant that the person you were speaking to thought you’d be better off keeping those thoughts to yourself. Ed was well versed in this practice, holding his tongue in most situations and making Al pretend he didn't think the conversations were just as dumb and wrong as Ed did. 

It was a bit jarring, then, when Theo was setting up his wheelchair, and casually threw out, “Let me know what you think of Hughes, after dinner. He offered to let us stay here, but I figured I should probably make sure you like him, first.”

Dismissive, offhand, like it didn't really matter either way, but Ed couldn't see him mentioning it if their opinion just didn't matter. The implication, then, was that Theo didn't care about what they thought, because he'd respect whatever choice  _ they  _ made about their sleeping arrangements. 

“He seems nice,” Al said. “I'm sure we'll like him.”

“Nice isn't everything,” Theo warned. “Some people are perfectly good people, but they're hard to be around.” The man shrugged. “That's probably just me being antisocial, though. Never much liked strangers. Or non-strangers. Or...anybody.” He looked over at them, and must have seen something on their faces, because he rushed to add, “I like you two, though.”

Ed really hoped he didn’t look as happy to hear that as he was. Theo was a nice guy, and treated them like family even if he didn’t really know them, but he was still related to  _ that guy,  _ and Ed wasn’t going to rule out a genetic predisposition to abandonment. Especially considering he’d mentioned at one point that he’d raised kids, which implied that he  _ had  _ kids, which brought up the question of where they were. 

If he’d left his own kids, he had no firmer ties keeping him with the Elrics. Why should they believe he’d stick around?

“Just...think about it,” Theo told them. “Let me know how you feel about it.”

He left, then, leaving Ed in Al’s care as he carried their things inside the house.

“What will he do if we  _ don’t  _ like him?” Ed asked.

“Dunno,” Al replied, starting to push his wheelchair toward the door. “Why?”

Ed frowned, but said nothing else. He’d asked because he was curious - because for once, they were being offered a choice in how things went for them, and he wasn’t really sure at what point they were going to run into the catch.

  
  
  


Seeing Gracia pregnant was jarring for a moment, but Theo recovered quickly - after seeing Maes alive, he doubted much else would throw him off balance for long. 

She directed him to set his things in the spare room, just in case they decided to stay. He hoped they would, if only because he genuinely didn’t plan for how they would stay in Central when he had no money or possessions whatsoever. He’d been using alchemy to keep his only clothes passably clean. 

He returned downstairs just in time to hear Alphonse tentatively ask Gracia for permission to touch her baby bump.

As he rounded the corner, he watched Al push Ed’s chair closer, before stepping up beside him so they could both feel her stomach. 

“Wow,” Ed breathed, and Theo remembered Satella and how fascinated they’d been by her pregnancy.

“Pretty cool, huh?” he asked, startling both boys and having them look his way guiltily, as though caught in something shameful. He laughed, walking up and dropping hands on each of their heads. “You could know all the math and science in the world, but you can’t beat nature. The world knows how things need to happen, with or without our help.”

“An important lesson,” Gracia said. “I might borrow it, when this one is old enough for it.”

“It’s not mine,” Theo admitted. “My teacher forced that on me years ago.”

“Ours, too!” Alphonse chimed in. “She taught us the whole world is connected.”

“‘One is All, All is One,’” Ed quoted. “You’re just one part of a bigger universe.”

“Sounds like you value spirituality,” Gracia ventured.

Theo snorted. “Nah, that’s more...I dunno, trying to get actively involved in the cycle of the world. To modify your part in it. I’ve done enough of that for a lifetime.”

Gracia gave him an amused smile. “Just going with the flow, huh?”

“More like I gave up,” he replied, all dry humor. “The world’s gonna do what it wants, so all I can do it ride it out and try and keep it from fucking me over too much.” 

Theo stepped back, gesturing toward the kitchen. 

“I’m gonna go bug those two,” he said. “Try not to drive Gracia crazy, okay guys?”

Alphonse chimed in with a promise he wouldn’t, while Ed offered a noncommittal grunt that was probably a lot more honest. Satisfied, Theo turned and headed out of the room, seeking out Hughes and Mustang.

He found them at the table, Mustang sitting while Hughes leaned over his shoulder, feeding him pictures. 

The second Mustang caught sight of him, he let out a heavily relieved sigh, calling, “Theo!”

“I’m not here to save you,” Theo replied immediately. “I was just promised food. You enjoy those pictures.”

“I like him,” Hughes declared. “Keep this one.”

Mustang flushed a slightly embarrassed red, pleading, “ _ Don’t _ encourage him.”

“So you’ve told me,” Theo said. “I’m okay with pictures. A dad who’s proud of his family is pretty rare, as far as I’ve seen.”

Hughes shot him a look reminiscent of a bloodhound catching a scent. “Your father was a famous alchemist, from what we’ve found on him,” he said. “We figured you learned from him, but it sounds like you two didn’t get along.”

“Oh, fuck no,” Theo confirmed. “I hated that bastard for  _ years.”  _

“Hat _ ed?  _ Past tense?”

Theo waved them off. “Don’t get excited. I just stopped caring so much when I got older. I went through some stuff and came out the other side not really giving a shit about it anymore. Too much energy wasted on stressing about that guy- not to say, though, that I’m  _ not  _ gonna punch him the next time I see him. Save Ed the trouble, at least.”

“He does seem the fighting kind,” Hughes replied easily. “So if you three don’t get along with your father, where  _ did  _ you learn alchemy?”

“Here and there,” Theo answered. “Studying the bastard’s old journals got me started, but most of those were full of nonsense or theory way too advanced for a beginner to get any use out of. I found a teacher and studied for a while as an apprentice, and then…”   
“You said you were the subject of a human transmutation,” Mustang prompted, blowing right past the shocked look Hughes shot between them. “That that somehow gave you insight into alchemy.”

Theo sighed, then nodded. “Human transmutation messes with the borders of this world, drags you almost to the other side and then - if you’re  _ lucky  _ \- back again. There’s a lot of knowledge in that in-between, if you can take it in before it breaks you. And I’ve seen it a couple times.”

“What were they trying to do to you?” Mustang asked. “Were you- did you die?”

Theo stared for a second, before bursting out a laugh. “No!” he assured them. “No, God, you’re worse than Ed. I lost an arm, and my- uh, someone I care about, they wanted me to have it back.” He reached up, yanking down his collar like he’d done for the boys, showing the automail shards where the port used to be and the jagged discolored scar that marked the area of the former amputation. 

“That’s…”

Theo scoffed at the horrified expressions locked on him, releasing his shirt and smoothing it back into place. “I’ve also tried human transmutation for myself, and have been attacked with human transmutation a couple times.”

“ _ Attacked _ with it?” Mustang echoed, bewildered. 

“One guy wanted to ‘fix’ me, and ended up making things worse,” Theo said. “The other, way before that, was...uh. He wanted to make something, and he didn’t care how much blood he had to spill to make it happen. He attacked a  _ lot  _ of people, I just happened to be the one who got to knock his fuckin’ lights out for it.”

Hughes made to reply, but then cut off, looking to the doorway. Theo and Mustang both followed his gaze to see Gracia there, leading the boys into the room.

“Ready for dinner?” she asked.

“Always,” Theo replied immediately, which made her laugh. 

He pretended not to notice how, throughout the dinner, all eyes followed him.

  
  
  


Ed and Al ultimately decided on indifference in response to their staying or going, so Theo helped get Ed upstairs and left them both to sleep for the night whilst he conspired with the adults about how he was going to infiltrate the world’s most corrupt military in order to kill the Fuhrer. 

Or, to protect the boys, depending on who you asked. Both were valid motives.

“So,” Mustang said. “The military exam is three stages. Written exam, psychological assessment, practical exam. In that order.”

“Written won’t be a problem,” Theo said. “Theoretical alchemy has been most of what I’ve done for the past decade.”

“Practical will be fine, too, if you do what you showed me,” Mustang added.

“So that leaves psychological,” Hughes chimed in. “Do you think you’ll have trouble with that?”

Theo shrugged. “I mean, I’m excellent at bullshit.”

Hughes narrowed his eyes. “Implying you wouldn’t be able to pass it honestly?”

“Probably not,” Theo admitted without hesitation. “I’m  _ fine,  _ but I’m not  _ normal,  _ and that’s a distinction most people don’t bother to make.”

“Roy put your full name on his papers he had made for you,” Hughes told him, switching the subject before Mustang could add anything else. “Someone along the chain must have recognized the last name, because there’ve been whispers about a famous alchemist applying.”

“Famous alchemist’s  _ son _ ,” Theo corrected. “If they show up expecting Hohenheim, they’re gonna be disappointed.”

“I doubt they’ll care about the distinction,” Mustang said. “They’ll show up expecting a Hohenheim who is uniquely skilling in alchemy, and that’s what they’re receive. Which generation won’t matter terribly much.” 

“Though,” Maes said, “it seems like you don’t care for your last name, much.”

“I told you I can’t stand that bastard,” Theo reminded him. “Why would I want to use his name?”

The irony in that statement was almost suffocating, and he regretted it the second it was out of his mouth. Fortunately, no one knew enough to call him on it, and the only person who  _ did  _ was still years out of showing up, most likely. 

God, that would be fun. ‘Hey, I know you only have two sons, but you have more now, because I said so. Roll with it. Please.’

He was in for a rough time with that one.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Mustang said, in a measured tone that Theo knew from years of working for or with him meant he thought that what was being discussed was stupid and was trying to be polite about it.

What a dick.

They spent a while discussing the details of the exam - schedules, including times, as well as example questions from both the first and second tests - while Theo tried his very best to act like this was all new information to him.

Honestly, though, he spent most of the night wondering something else entirely: what the  _ fuck  _ was his title going to be?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> community poll: keep 'fullmetal alchemist' or change it? i was just gonna change it but i figured id ask
> 
> see you next year xoxo  
> (if youre reading this in the future, it is currently dec 31)


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maes couldn’t tell if the man Roy had brought to him was the most interesting puzzle he’d ever received, or just the most frustrating.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg i just saw i havent updated since last year!!! /shot  
> (again, if youre in the future, its jan 1)
> 
> votes came in at an overwhelming "change it" so that's what we're doing! Also I was gonna call him the Golden Alchemist bc of him looking like Hohenheim but a couple people guessed that so I had to go with my slightly more creative plan B  
> spoiler: theo fuckin HATES it lmao

Killing a week in someone else’s house wasn’t something Theo was looking forward to, especially when that someone was Maes Hughes, and loved to shove his nose into things that didn’t concern him and shove it further into things that  _ did.  _

And Theo? Theo  _ did  _ concern him, and as such, the man had no hope. 

  
  
  


Maes couldn’t tell if the man Roy had brought to him was the most interesting puzzle he’d ever received, or just the most frustrating.

Day one in their house just so happened to coincide with a day off of that he  _ may  _ have requested for undisclosed reasons a few days prior, and so he got the opportunity to study the man up close as he adjusted to spending time in the Hughes household.

You could tell a lot about people by how they reacted when they woke up in a house that wasn’t theirs. Some people cleaned up their used spaces or tried to cook breakfast, while others just sort of stood around awkwardly and waited to be given a purpose. 

_ Theo,  _ on the other hand, was already up when Maes went downstairs, sitting on the couch, engrossed in an old leather-bound book to the point that he didn’t seem to notice anyone else even came in. 

“Good morning,” Maes greeted, speaking softly in case he startled the man. To his surprise, though, Theo barely reacted, grunting back a mild ‘ _ g’morning’  _ of his own. 

This, he imagined, was how other people saw him when he was working - fully immersed and operating on automatic. 

He left Theo to his book. Three hours later, when he passed by the couch again, Theo was still there, this time fiddling with something metal. 

“What’s that?” Maes asked, leaning over the back of the couch. 

Theo held it up a bit so he could see. It looked like a vambrace, turned to face inside-up, which he was digging into the surface of with a little jagged pick tool.

The carvings were rough and nonsensical, just a collection of letters. AE. WR-E. NE. He was finishing up an  _ RE.  _

“I like carrying around something I can transmute when I need an emergency weapon,” Theo said. “So, a brace.”

“And the letters?”

The drag of the pick made an uncomfortable shriek, as though protesting its mention.  

“A reminder,” Theo answered. “Initials. People I knew. People I lost.” 

...Morbid. 

It explained why he was carving it in, though, rather than using alchemy. Catharsis. 

“Who were they?” Maes asked, gently as possible. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“In order?” Theo tapped each set of initials in turn. “My brother. My wife. My...my daughter, and my son.”

Shit. 

“I’m sorry,” Maes breathed out. “That’s awful.”

“This is to remind myself not to do anything else that I can regret.” He turned the vambrace over, moving to clamp it on over his arm, moving his hand about to test the comfort of the fit around his forearm. “And there you go. That’s my story.” He looked up, looking like he went for an amused smirk and instead just landed somewhere in the realm of ‘tired.’ “You don’t have to spy on me for it.”

“Ah,” Maes said, interested in the fact that Theo had caught onto his curiosity in only a few minutes total of interaction. “You never  _ have  _ to, really.”

Theo snorted, looking away, removing the vambrace and setting it aside. “I’m not that interesting, I promise.”

“If you weren’t,” Maes countered, “you wouldn’t be so determined to keep me from looking into you.”

Theo laughed. “I guess not.” He waved Maes off, saying, “Let me know if you figure out who I am. I’m not always sure.”

“Can do,” Maes replied, watching as Theo sat his things - his book and vambrace - aside and headed out the door. 

A peek through the window revealed the man finding a patch of exposed dirt and crouching down beside it, tracing what was probably something alchemy related into it.

Never idle, it seemed. 

Still, his info file on Theo just got a little bigger. 

  
  
  


Over the course of the next eight days, Maes learned the following things about Theo Van Hohenheim:

  1. If he slept at all, he was very stealthy about it. Maes always went to bed before him and woke after him, no matter how much he skewed his sleep schedule to try and change this. 
  2. He hated his last name. Not just _disliked_ it, genuinely _hated_ it. Gracia referred to him by it once to be polite and he’d been quick to correct them, insisting (in a mostly polite, yet aggressive way) that his given name would work fine in any situation.
  3. He lived and breathed alchemy. He spent all his time in the yard working on some theoretical alchemy project Maes tried not to ask too much about, given that it immediately launched the man into what sounded like the beginnings of an advanced physics lesson, and he really wasn’t interested in having to explain that he was absolutely hopeless in all fields of science. When the boys were up, they were usually with Theo, studying his every move, and Maes often overheard snippets of their impromptu field lessons - once again, full of technical lingo he didn’t follow at all. 



In everything else, the man was a mystery. Research still hadn’t turned up any solid information on where he came from, he wasn’t able to find any news stories about families being killed in tragic accidents or anything that would line up with the initials carved in his vambrace,  _ nothing _ . He couldn’t even find  _ train records  _ to date when he travelled to Risembool. He was a ghost story, popping up here and there with stories of great alchemic deeds, and now he wasn’t even sure how many of those were Theo and how many were his father. 

He felt bad about it, but he was almost relieved when the test day rolled around and he realized it was about to become entirely Roy’s problem. 

(As though anything were ever entirely Roy’s problem.)

_ “Six hours?”  _

Maes laughed as Edward and Alphonse stared at Theo in horror at the concept of a test that long. 

“That’s how long they give you,” Theo replied, dismissive. “It probably won’t take that long.”

Maes had believed that to be a misinformed statement that he’d learn was wrong later, but when he and Roy waited outside the test location after seeing him off for it, he came out with plenty of time to spare.

He passed, too, and apparently spectacularly.

Maes didn’t feel so bad about his relief, after that. Let Roy handle this guy. He had a baby to stress about instead. 

  
  
  
  


The psychological exam was exactly as garbage as Theo remembered, with him sitting on a three-legged chair and answering textbook psychology questions until the old guys that made up the panel judging him finally rubber stamped him and let him go. 

The practical exam, though.  _ That  _ was the fun part.

He was only a little surprised to see Bradley when he entered the room - while he had been sure one of the homunculi was going to be spying on him, he’d figured it’d be Envy in disguise as an officer, since there was no longer the ‘he’s twelve years old and I’m curious’ excuse.

Bradley’s little amused smile/squint combination was infuriating on sight, and it didn’t help when the first words out of his mouth when Theo entered were, “So it’s true. I heard the son of Van Hohenheim was applying for entry as a State Alchemist. I knew him, once.”

Bullshit, but his ‘Father’  _ had  _ known him, and Theo guessed that was close enough. 

“Theophrastus, right?” Bradley asked.

Theo jerked his head up, giving the Fuhrer a suspicious squint before he could restrain himself. He’d only ever given the short form of his stolen name, which meant that Bradley was acting on assumption that Hohenheim had given his true full name to this suddenly appearing son. 

“...Yeah,” he allowed, because his reaction had already ruined any chance he had to play it off. 

“Well, we’ll be interested to see what you’re capable of,” Bradley said. “Proceed.”

This was the point where Theo knew he’d get the homunculi’s attention for sure, if they weren’t already on him for his face and name alone. He headed to one end of the room, crouching down to draw out a simple array neatly on the floor. He activated it, forming a simple wooden figure in the center, before standing.

“That’s-...?” One of the proctors started to protest.

“I’m not done, I promise,” Theo laughed, crossing back to the other side of the room. He took a deep breath, measured the distance from his first array, and then clapped.

He practically  _ felt  _ Bradley’s spine snap a little straighter. 

His hands touched ground, transfer array in his mind, and reached out for the other end of the room. Through the link, he coaxed the wooden figure to slowly disintegrate, material being sucked into his personal gate and being spat out at the point of contact he had with the ground.

It had taken forever the first time he’d used this array, but he’d learned a lot in his practice. It was also a lot easier to transfer something that was already made than to create something new, the way he’d started off doing. Between the two, it was barely a moment before he was pulling his hands back, stepping away from his creation.

“Distance transmutation?” A proctor murmured. “Amazing. How far away can you be?”

“Eh,” Theo rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ve tested about twenty meters. So far, as long as I can see the array, I can make it work immediately, and ones I can’t see I can typically find after a minute or so.”

“So far?”

“I came up with this array not too long ago,” Theo admitted. “I’m still playing with it.”

“And you could do that with anything?” a different proctor asked. “Any items? Potential correspondence?” 

“I didn’t design it to be a courier array,” Theo said, dryly. “But yeah, theoretically, if I can connect the arrays, I can take anything anywhere.” He hesitated, before specifying, “Any  _ object _ . It doesn’t work on living things - I’ve tested it with fruit, and plants, and it really,  _ really  _ doesn’t like it.”

“Astounding,” the proctor breathed.

“The kind of groundbreaking work I’d expect from someone with your bloodline,” Bradley said, a hint in his voice that Theo couldn’t name but could definitely recognize. He had their attention, for sure. “I expect you’ll do great things, Mister Hohenheim.”

Theo grimaced, but didn’t correct him, if only because he didn’t want to imply he was on a first name basis with  _ Wrath _ . 

Bradley turned to leave, guards following close at his heels, and Theo was struck with an impulse he couldn’t resist. 

“You probably knew my dad more than I did,” he called after him, feeling a private satisfaction when Bradley’s steps paused for him to listen. “If you’re expecting me to be like him, you’re gonna be disappointed.”

There was a pause where the Fuhrer seemed to be considering that.

“...No,” he replied, finally. “I don’t think I will.”

And then he left.

  
  
  


“Results are in!” Mustang announced, the next day, showing up at Hughes’ house with a familiar manila folder. Theo opened if under their eager eyes, not at all surprised when he got a glimpse of the acceptance paperwork header.

Under that, though...

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Theo said, staring at the paper he’d pulled out. That certificate that had once branded him  _ FULLMETAL,  _ a dumb joke from Bradley, was now an even  _ dumber  _ joke that was actually fucking obnoxious.

The  _ Courier  _ Alchemist. 

He was going to beat the shit out of Wrath at the earliest opportunity.

“Well, looks like you’re one of us, now,” Mustang said.

“A dog of the military,” Hughes added.

Yeah, well, this dog was going to  _ bite.  _

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (theo voice) im gonna deliver them straight to hell is what im gonna do


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Being there early doesn’t make the train leave any faster,” Theo pointed out.
> 
> Roy shot him a look. “Do you want to go or not?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh this took a while im sorry!!! i got on a harry potter kick lmao....and now im on a one piece kick too so if any of yall read/watch that uh. stay tuned?
> 
> in the meantime! things kick off a bit, some technicalities are addressed, and Roy both regrets his life choices and kind of wants to ask them to dinner

Theo hated the fucking military.

First, his alchemist codename sucked. A lot. Like, he was tempted to go fucking beat Bradley’s face in and make him change it, because at least ‘Fullmetal’ was  _ cool.  _ People heard it and thought he was hardcore, and only ever changed that opinion because he was an actual child. Now the implication was that he was some kind of glorified mailman for the military - which, by the way, was not true. He was not using his array to send stuff to other places. If he could figure out an infinite distance version of the array, he’d put one in Mustang’s office and that was  _ it.  _

Worse than that, though, was the problem he was dealing with now:  _ uniforms.  _

When Theo had joined the military originally, he’d been too short to fit even the smallest uniform size, and everyone had been too squeamish about him being a kid in the military to bother fitting him for a custom one.

Now, though, he was an adult, and a respectable size, which meant he was doomed.

He tugged at the collar of the uniform jacket, grimacing at its suffocating feeling. He was between sizes, and while they were altering a few uniforms to fit his height better, he was stuck in the smaller one. This meant that areas where he was broad, bulky, or muscular - which was to say, most of him - were uncomfortably pressing against the lines of the material, making it an absurdly close fit. 

“It looks good!” Maes told him. “Suits you. Roy, tell him!”

Mustang looked up, blinking at Theo, seeming to freeze when he saw him.

“This is the single worst thing I’ve ever worn,” Theo informed him.

“It looks good,” Mustang echoed, but his voice sounded strained, so Theo imagined he was trying not to laugh. 

“You look tough,” Ed said, from the side, which was at least an improvement. 

“I hope you get your custom ones soon, though,” Al said. “You look really uncomfortable.”

Mustang muttered something he didn’t bother trying to make out, and Theo sighed heavily, shaking his head.

“Can we just get to the fucking train station?” he asked irritably. “It’s been nice - and I’m grateful for you letting us stay here, Lieutenant Colonel Hughes - but I hate this city.”

“Let’s head out,” Roy agreed, standing and heading quickly for the door. “The sooner we get to East City, the better.”

“Being there early doesn’t make the train leave any faster,” Theo pointed out.

Roy shot him a look. “Do you want to go or not?”

Rolling his eyes, Theo turned back to Hughes. “Thanks again. We-...I owe you.” 

It was still hard to remember he didn’t have his own Alphonse at his side for these things. 

“Nothing owed!” Maes dismissed. “Come back and visit the next time you’re in the city! I should have a baby by then!”

Theo thought of Elicia, crying and confused at her father’s funeral.  _ Not this time,  _ he told himself, and gave Hughes a smile.

“Absolutely,” he said, and then hesitated, hovering there a moment as Mustang ushered Ed and Al outside behind him. When they were alone, he murmured, “Lieutenant Colonel...”

“Just Maes,” the man corrected. “Or Hughes, if you’ve gotta.”

“Hughes,” Theo corrected, stricken by the realization he was now on  _ equal  _ ground with the other man, rather than being basically his ward. Shaking that off, he told the man, “You’re going to be a great dad, Hughes.”

Hughes smiled, kind and pleased, and looked to the door for a moment before meeting Theo’s eyes.

“So will you,” he told him. 

Theo blanched, trying to stutter out a denial, but Hughes simply spun him by the shoulders and started steering him out after the others. 

“Go catch your train!” Hughes ordered. “And take care of those boys! Of yourself, too.”

And then he shut the door. 

“Ready to go?” Mustang asked, appearing over Theo’s shoulder.

Theo let out a low sigh, turning away from the Hughes household, trying to comfort himself with the knowledge that he at least was leaving Maes  _ alive  _ this time. “I’m ready. Let’s get out of here.”

  
  
  
  


Roy studied the man across from him carefully, slowly taking in every detail in his slumped form. 

Theo was more than a mystery, simultaneously secretive beyond measure and entirely open. He admitted to criminal activity without an ounce of shame to be seen, admitting to his past without fear of consequence, but was cagey on any details that had to do with who he actually was. He had been willing to tell them he was in a human transmutation, but not who the person who’d saved him with it was. 

Maes had told him that Theo claimed to have had a family, at some point, and lost them. ‘Lost’ could imply many things, but he and Maes both had the strong feeling that the people he’d  _ lost  _ were dead. Theo didn’t seem broken by the loss, though, even if the alternative seemed to be him having built his entire self around the concept of keeping his brothers safe.

Which brought up another question- one he actually took the time to ask. 

“What is it, exactly, you need to protect Ed and Al from?” Roy asked. 

“I never said?” Theo asked. When Roy shook his head, he let out a small hum, and a winded, “Weird.” 

And then he went back to looking out the window.

Roy barely knew enough about this man to fill a shot glass, but the chief observation among them was that he was an  _ asshole.  _

He also seemed to think very poorly of Roy, and appeared to dislike him within mere seconds of their meeting. He was not nearly as hostile to Maes, as far as Roy knew. Maes’ report indicated that the man barely spoke at all, but it seemed every time Theo opened his mouth around Roy, an insult was going to come out at some point. Maes had confirmed that Theo referred to him in passing as “that bastard,” which seemed an unfair assessment from someone he hadn't actually been a bastard toward. 

“If you want me to help watch out for them,” Roy tried to reason, “I should know what I'm looking out for.” 

Theo looked back at Roy, before glancing down to his side, where his two younger brothers had fallen asleep, their heads together and their backs angled on the seat to rest against Theo's shoulder. 

“I'm not the only person out there that’s pissed at my dad,” Theo told him, not looking up. “Being his kids makes them targets. Worse, since they've seen the Gate.”

“The Gate?” Roy echoed. 

“It's where you end up when you do-..” His eyes flicked to the door of the compartment, and he murmured, “When you try what they did. What all three of us have done. I showed you a little bit of it - the Gate is full of knowledge, everything there is to know in the world all packed together, and if you've seen it, it stays with you. That makes us powerful, which makes us dangerous, which means that I can't trust those enemies of my dad’s not to be tempted to step in.”

“What would they do? Use them to bait your father?”

Theo snorted. “If that would have worked, they'd already have grabbed them. No, worse. My dad is hated because of his secrets, and if people can't get that information from  _ him-...” _

“All the knowledge in the world is with them,” Roy finished, as it came together for him. “You think they’d try and take their answers by force.”

“I know they would,” Theo corrected. “I've seen it happen. I've lived it.”

Roy frowned, before another piece clicked into place. “You said you were attacked with-...with alchemy. Someone came after you?”

“It was a mess,” Theo said, a slightly evasive confirmation if he meant it to be one. “A lot of death, a lot of fighting, all for-...”

_ “For?” _ Roy prompted. 

Theo made a disgusted noise. “The Philosopher’s Stone.”

Roy blinked. “I…I take it that isn't a myth, then?”

Theo shook his head. “Hohenheim has one. Or, well- whatever. It doesn't matter. What  _ does  _ matter is that someone else really,  _ really  _ wants one, and they are willing to kill anyone and everyone to get it.” His eyes scanned the cabin again. “There’s a lot more to it, but...not here. We really don’t want to be overheard.”

Roy wasn’t sure which option was worse - that Theo had something to tell him that would require utmost secrecy and involved actual lives at stake, or if he was just three sheets to the wind and that was something Roy had to deal with now. 

Either way, he wasn’t getting anything out of the man, so he may as well sit back and wait to be back in East City. 

  
  
  


This was the best day of Theo’s life. 

Or, well, no, it was still really shitty that he had fallen into the past, and devastating to know he’d lost everything to get there, but in a  _ less serious  _ way, this was good.

Because when he was introduced to Mustang’s team, and he went to greet Kain Fuery, he had to look  _ down.  _

“Fuery is our communications specialist,” Mustang introduced. “To his left is Vato Falman, our intelligence specialist, and Heymans Breda, our investigations specialist. You’ve already met Jean Havoc, officer-in-charge, and Riza Hawkeye, my adjutant.”

“Do I get a fancy title?” Theo asked, because he didn’t remember anyone giving him a title. He didn’t remember anyone telling him the others’, either, which gave him the feeling that he would learn a lot more about these people when they weren’t coming at him with kid gloves. 

“Field investigator,” Mustang said. “At least, most likely. I’ll send you on short trips to check in on rumors we pick up of criminal activity, particularly involving alchemists.”

“‘Short’ trips?” Theo echoed, bewildered by the specification. “How short?”

“A few days, maximum,” Mustang told him, in a tone that suggested it was an assurance, like he was worried Theo was upset about his potential mission lengths being too  _ long.  _ “And not until I’m certain you have settled in, so that we know the boys will be alright in your absence.”

Oh, right. He had two kids with him, and this time, he didn’t have a wife to push them off on. 

God, he was a piece of shit. He shook the thought off - no time for that, right now - and asked, “Speaking of that. Will the dorms let kids live there?”

“Dorms are single-person only,” Mustang said, which  _ again  _ gave Theo the idea that he had been given special treatment as a kid. “But there are military apartments in the building beside it, for families of stationed soldiers. I’ve arranged for one to be set aside for you.”

“Oh.” Theo rocked back on his heels for a second, thrown. “...Thanks.”

“Not a problem,” Mustang returned. “Show your watch to the apartment concierge, and give her your name, and she’ll sort you out. I’ll also give your first paycheck in advance, to help with moving costs.”

Theo wanted to tell him that was unnecessary, as he had nothing to move, but that money would be his  _ only  _ money, and he still had to feed two kids. 

He wondered if an Edward Elric that wasn’t eating to fuel his brother’s body, trapped in limbo, would still eat enough for a small army. 

Probably. His luck sucked like that.

“I’ll let you get to that,” Mustang continued, oblivious to Theo’s internal planning. “But after you’ve settled for the moment, I would like you to meet with me, to finish our discussion from the train.”

Theo grimaced, and ran the mental math on how many bugs were probably in Mustang’s office that he hadn’t caught yet, based on when the last time Hughes would have come out to visit would have been. As he couldn’t see Maes leaving his pregnant wife for even a second - Theo ignored the twinge of guilt and self-loathing that was now becoming familiar - he imagined the office was riddled with the things. 

“Just drop by the apartment when you’re done for the day,” Theo offered. “I’ll tell you there.”

Mustang faltered for a moment, watching Theo with slightly wide eyes, as though he’d suggested something wild instead of just picking an area that he could more easily secure. After a moment, he shook his head, like shaking off a thought, and said, “Alright. Warn the concierge I’m coming, and I’ll drop by when I’m done here.”

Theo had never lost his insubordination, so he made sure the salute he threw up on his way out was both extremely lax and heavily sarcastic. 

Mustang’s eye didn’t twitch, though, which was obnoxious. Instead, his eyes followed Theo’s every movement closely, a measuring stare that Theo only escaped from when he turned and left. 

_ Weird.  _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuery is like...barely five feet tall, which puts him a good seven inches under theo right now, as opposed to a couple inches above him, which theo is LIVING for
> 
> also  
> theo: haha im going to be antagonistic until i get a rise out of mustang  
> mustang, doing the butterfly meme: is this flirting?


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He felt like a creep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ]im half asleep hile posting this so if there are mistakes im sorz im just sleeby,,,its 3am for me right now

In order to use his cour-  _ transfer  _ array (he was going to strangle Bradley), Theo had to develop the skill of being able to find his own arrays when not directly touching it or its surrounding area. The way he’d found to do this was by using the gate’s gift of adaptive alchemy: when he started a transmutation, he instinctively knew what material he was dealing with, provided he didn’t get too in his own head and start trusting his own assumptions first. It kept him from being blindsided by materials he didn’t know by heart, or being stuck on fixing mechanisms he wasn’t totally sure of the proper order for. 

It was simple, then, to block off the initial array in his mind and instead do a very basic, large-scale transmutation, where he partially deconstructed and instantly reconstructed the area around him. 

It was  _ exhausting,  _ even for Theo’s skill level and with his extensive several-times-over visiting the Gate thing, and he was pretty sure that meant it was impossible for anyone else, so he absolutely wasn’t about to advertise it if he could help it. It was also the reason for his range limit - while controlling the transfer array didn’t get much harder with increased distance,  _ finding  _ it did, unless he could see it and make a path straight for it. 

He wasn’t using that array, though. Instead, he was using his ‘seeking’ array to feel out around their new apartment, room by room, looking for anything electronic that shouldn’t have been there. He didn’t trust the military not to bug apartments for the fuck of it, especially not  _ his  _ apartment. 

There were two issues with this plan:

First, and least important, Theo’s array extended out in a circle. Apartments, coincidentally, we not circles. Going room-by-room helped him limit the overreach, but his bedroom and the kitchen both had him feeling partially into the apartments on either side of him, which meant he now had a good idea of the layout of about three square feet of each. He felt like a creep.

Much, much more relevant, was that the array was  _ difficult,  _ and Theo was swaying on his feet by the time he finished the last room. 

“Theo!” Ed shouted, and Theo heard the faint squeaking noise the boy’s chair made whenever he spun the wheels himself instead of letting Al push him. A second later, a small hand was splayed out on his stomach, like Ed was trying to hold him up.

Instinctively, Theo placed his hand over it, patting it gently in a way he hoped was reassuring. “I’m fine,” he promised. “Just a lot of alchemy.”

“Alchemy?” Ed echoed. 

“What did you do?” Al asked, appearing over Ed’s shoulder in an instant. They were never far apart, but any distance they’d managed to put between them would vanish in a heartbeat when they heard Theo start talking to one or both about his theories and work. 

Theo was a little worried he’d stolen Izumi’s job, and really hoped he never had to deal with that, if he dragged her into the whole Promised Day bullshit. 

“The transfer array has a seeking component to it,” Theo told them. “I used it to search the apartment.”

Ed looked at him like he was an idiot. “Use your  _ eyes.”  _

Theo snorted. “Not as detailed,” he said. “I was making sure there wasn’t anything  _ hidden  _ in here. Surveillance stuff.”

Ed and Al both snapped up straight. 

“Someone put a camera in here?” Al asked.

“No, it’s clean,” Theo assured him. “There's a security camera above the door on the outside, but I fucked up the microphone on it, just in case it could hear the inside. Other than that, we should be good to go.”

“Why?” Ed asked. “Are people spying on you?”

Theo grimaced, thinking, wondering how much he should let the boys in on. On one hand, they were  _ kids.  _ On the other...well, in another life, they’d been the ones taking care of it. 

He owed them at least  _ part  _ of the truth.

“The military, the government, it’s all...corrupt,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “Amestris is built with blood, and they’re not anywhere near done expanding. The Fuhrer himself is part of a group that is actively working to destroy this country for their own goals, and the best chance at stopping them is…” He faltered for a second, before gesturing between them. “Us, I guess. Our dad, mostly, but us too.”

Ed scowled at the mention of Hohenheim, but they both looked attentive, so he assumed they were still listening, and pressed on.

“Everyone who’s done human transmutation,” Theo started to explain, “has access to a level of alchemy no one can reach with regular study. We’re powerful, and if they can use that power for their own goals, they  _ will.” _

“So why did you join them?” Ed asked. 

“Tear it apart from the inside,” Theo said easily. “Not to mention, if shit goes south? I’m throwing you two at Mustang and telling you to haul ass to Creta or Xing until this is all over.”   
“Bullshit!” Ed shouted, glaring at Theo. “If you’re doing this, we’re gonna help, too!”

“Ed, buddy,” Theo said, gently as possible, “You’re  _ eleven.”  _

“We did a human transmutation!” Ed said. “You  _ just  _ said that makes us powerful, better than the best normal alchemist. You need us.”

Alphonse had often commented on the futility and frustration of trying to argue with him, and Theo had a feeling he’d just stumbled into the first instance of that headache he’d suffer himself.

“You guys could be a help,” Theo admitted, “but only if things are  _ working.  _ If I fuck up, even a little, I want you guys somewhere safe. Your alchemy makes you useful, so they won’t kill you, but...being  _ alive _ isn’t the only thing that matters.”

“But if we’re valuable,” Al said, quietly, “they’ll already  _ be  _ watching us, right?”

Theo shook his head. “They don’t have any way to confirm you two have done it. Which reminds me - the way I do transmutations, by clapping?  _ Don’t  _ do that. Draw a circle. Only alchemists who have seen the Gate can do transmutations without marks, and that will give you away immediately. The safest thing for you two is for them to be suspicious enough to keep you alive, but doubtful enough to leave you alone.”

There was a knock on the door, and he heard a woman’s voice call through it, “Mr. Hohenheim? Your guest is here.” 

That would be Ms. Boden, the concierge, which meant the ‘guest’ was Mustang.

“We’ll talk about this later, alright,” Theo told the boys. “For now, I need you to hang out in your room for a while. Set it up, make some decorations or something, I dunno. I’m just gonna need to talk to him for a minute in private.”

Ed gave him a suspicious squint, but Al nodded and took the handles of his chair, pushing it out of the room, all while ignoring his elder brother’s protests.

Amused, Theo shook his head, and went to answer the door.

This would be interesting.

  
  
  
  


The concierge was a military appointment, as the apartments were in a military building for military use, and it really shouldn’t have mattered, but that meant the woman had recognized him. Which would have been fine, as well, really, except that he could  _ see  _ the wheels turning in her brain, trying to puzzle out why Roy Mustang, the Flame Alchemist, would be dropping by the apartment of a new soldier with a few hours of his arrival. He was not usually the welcoming sort, never going beyond standard pleasantries unless he had something to gain, and people knew that. 

Soon, though, the rumors surrounding Theo would spread around East City as they had around Central, and everyone would know exactly why Roy took an interest in this new alchemist.

Well...other than their obvious assumptions. 

The woman had introduced herself as Eliza Boden, and seemed to be buzzing with energy as she led him to the apartment, giving Roy the impression that she was the sort who was going to be talking about this all week. 

Thoughts of that weren’t worth dwelling on, though. It was much better to focus on the prospect that he might finally get some  _ answers  _ out of his odd new alchemist recruit.

When the door swung open, it was to a wash of gold, Theo smiling at them from within. Or, well, smiling at Ms. Boden, completely ignoring Roy.

“Thanks!” he told the concierge cheerily. “I appreciate you letting me know.” His eyes slid to the side at last, landing on Roy, and he added, “And for walking him up. I’m not taking responsibility if he wanders into the wrong apartment.”   
Ms. Boden gave a laugh that Roy could best describe as a  _ giggle  _ and bid them farewell, leaving to return to her post. 

Roy took the moment to examine him, to notice what had changed in the few spare hours since he’d last seen him. Theo had shucked his jacket, at some point, leaving him in the military trousers but a plain black tank top style undershirt. Under one of the sleeves, the metal-flecked skin he’d showed Roy and Maes was clearly visible, as well as a seam of uneven flesh tone going around, all the way up until it was brushing the base of his neck, and dipped back down into the unseen territory beneath the fabric. 

Fingers cut into his vision, Theo touching one of the metal pieces lodged there. “They don’t hurt,” he said, seemingly misinterpreting the look as concern, rather than insatiable curiosity. “Honestly, the scar is kind of sensitive, but I think the nerves were damaged a lot by the automail, because I can’t feel half this arm.” 

Roy wasn’t sure how to respond to that, but he didn’t have to figure it out, as Theo stepped back and jerked his head toward the inside of his apartment. 

“Come on in,” he said. As soon as Roy stepped through, he shut and locked the door behind him, and informed the man, “i checked over the apartment, and it’s not bugged, so we should be okay. Unless Ed and Al are spying, the little shits.”

Theo looked down the hall with narrowed eyes, toward where presumably his brothers were meant to be. 

“Bugged?” Roy echoed, incredulous. “It was an empty apartment. Why would someone bother to bug it?”

“Intel is everywhere, Mustang,” Theo replied, which would have sounded like a wise warning if it weren’t for the heavily sarcastic tone it was said in. “You heard Bradley-...”

_ “Fuhrer  _ Bradley,” Roy corrected. 

_ “Bradley,”  _ Theo insisted, carrying on before Roy could interrupt again. “Bradley knew my name, and I damn sure didn’t tell him, and  _ you  _ couldn’t have because you didn’t know it.”

Roy did remember. He’d thought it was an odd name, sort of ancient, that likely had some family history or something that made them give it to a baby only a few decades prior.

“Theophrastus,” Roy recalled, watching Theo grimace. “What about it?”

Theo gave him a flat look. “What was Hughes able to dig up on me?”

Roy’s blood went cold. He knew? Had Hughes- no, he wouldn’t have said, wouldn’t have even hinted. 

When they’d first met in Risembool, Theo had guessed at his rank and hit very close, presumably based off his uniform. He’d also seen right through their ‘investigating’ and called them out on their attempts at recruitment. He’d spotted them across a crowded train station in an instant, he hadn’t hesitated in going with them…

Theo was very,  _ very  _ observant, and that was an awfully dangerous thing to be. 

“Nothing,” he answered, mostly honest. “A few rumors, nothing of substance.”

“No first name.” 

Roy nodded, then paused. “Oh,” he said. “If your last name isn’t out there...did Bradley get it from your father?” 

“From  _ his,  _ probably,” Theo said, nonsensically, before fixing Roy with a serious stare. “I need to tell you something.”

Roy straightened. “What is it?”

Theo’s fingers came up to brush the metal bits on his shoulder.

“I want to tell you where I came from,” he said. “At least part of it. Someone should know why I’m really here.”

“For the boys?” Roy suggested. 

“Mostly,” Theo confirmed, “but everyone else, too.” He gestured to the couch. “Let’s sit down.”

Roy moved as directed, taking a seat more out of politeness than anything.

“Okay,” Theo said, taking a breath, levelling Roy with a flat look, and informing him, “We’re about to spark a revolution.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo deadass nearly said "we need to kill the fuhrer" but like...he's not 12 anymore and he doesnt want to die before he at least gets to punch bradley for the courier thing


	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “That’s...this is the part where you’re going to think I’m crazy.”
> 
> Mustang looked at him in a way that implied something like ‘I already do,’ which Theo ignored.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shorter chappie than normal bc i go to work in like 20 minutes lmao but. here ya go kids! 
> 
>  
> 
> also, at one point in this chapter i mention theo having done 6 human transmutations, so... before anyone asks, the six transmutations: transmuting his mom, bonding al to armor, the nationwide array, getting his arm back, trading his alchemy for al, and the transmutation that sent him back. if you count the second instance of the first transmutation due to time shenanigans, that makes seven, but I just lumped that in with the last one for convenience

Mustang blinked at him, slow and confused, and Theo took a moment to consider if it had been the age difference that made him think of the man as being so infinitely sharp witted before, or if he was just this disarming as an adult. 

“We’re going to  _ what?”  _ Mustang asked, voice almost warning. 

Theo took it as a sign that he needed to explain quickly. “I mentioned the Philosopher’s Stone? That my dad’s enemies - uh, mine now, really - want to make one?” He waited for Mustang’s slow nod. “That’s the simple part. The Philosopher’s Stone is an object that is so high in value, it negates all need for materials for alchemy. The only thing that is unequaled in value, though, is human life.”

Mustang’s gaze sharpened a bit. “Philosopher’s Stones...are humans?”

“Not just one, or a few,” Theo confirmed. “Hundreds, at least. Thousands. Millions, if you can get them.”

“...Your father…?”

“Was tricked into making one,” Theo said. “That’s...this is the part where you’re going to think I’m crazy.”

Mustang looked at him in a way that implied something like ‘ _ I already do,’  _ which Theo ignored.

“There are two benefits to a Philosopher’s Stone, outside of free alchemy. The first is human transmutation.”

“Human transmutation?” Mustang echoed. 

“It’s possible,” Theo said. “...Sort of. If you have a Philosopher’s Stone. You can’t transmute the dead, once they’re gone, they’re gone, but-...you can  _ create  _ a human. Artificial life. A homunculus.” 

Mustang narrowed his eyes, but looked more  _ considering  _ than  _ suspicious.  _ “...And the other?”

“Eternal life.”

Mustang snorted. “Immortality?” 

“Hell no,” Theo said. “Everything can die, it’s just a massive fucking headache.” Mustang was starting to get that blank look again, so Theo pressed on. “It just- the stone can put you in a kind of stasis. You stop aging.”

“And you know this, because..?”

“Because it happened to Hohenheim,” Theo said. “And the man who tricked him into making the first two stones. The first homunculus.” 

“I thought you just said you need a stone for a homunculus?”

“A stone is just a condensed point of thousands of souls,” Theo reminded him. “I don’t know for sure, but I’m pretty sure the first was created by just taking them directly.”

Mustang shook his head. “This is-...You’re not making sense. Get to the point.”

“The first homunculus and my dad, together, created the first two Philosopher’s Stones,” Theo said. “They didn’t create the actual  _ stone,  _ though - those souls got condensed down, and trapped into their bodies. My father, and a copy of his body, the first homunculus. They were frozen in time, and they went their separate ways...for a few hundred years.” Theo hesitated a second, before telling him, “To create two stones, you need  _ thousands _ of souls. There’s no way to get all of those in a way history doesn’t remember.”

Mustang watched him for a moment, before prompting, “Where did they get them?”

“Xerxes,” Theo said. “They destroyed Xerxes.”

“The city that was destroyed in a single night,” Mustang murmured. “They killed everyone, to make those stones?” 

Theo nodded. “My dad went East, to Xing, but the homunculus went West. To Amestris. He’s still here.”

Mustang reached up, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Okay, so you’re saying - your father, and this ‘homunculus,’ they’re some kind of immortal creature from an ancient destroyed city?”

“Basically.”   
Mustang shook his head. “How-...Why should I believe this? Why shouldn’t I just call you crazy and be done with it?”

Theo looked at him, a sort of anxious dread settling in his stomach, but he forced himself past it. “What do you know about Xerxes?”

“It was destroyed in a single night,” Mustang said. “It was a fairytale city. They said the streets and the people were both made of gold.”

Theo reached up, grabbing the band of his ponytail and snapping it loose, his hair falling around his shoulders. “People made of gold,” he repeated. “Gold hair, gold eyes, gold skin.  _ Look  _ at me, Mustang. You saw Bradley, when he saw me - he knew right away. I look just like my dad.”

“...Fuhrer Bradley,” Mustang realized. “He knows your dad. How?”

“This is the other crazy part,” Theo said. “Bradley is a homunculus.”

Mustang blinked. “He-...what?”

Theo reached up, tapping the area under his eye. “His eye. The missing one? If you can ever get it revealed, there’s a mark there. An ouroboros tattoo. Every homunculus has one. They were all created by the first homunculus, to serve as tools, getting the country ready.”

He saw the same instant Mustang put it together. “...They want to destroy Amestris, next.”

“They’ve already started,” Theo confirmed. “They’re digging a circle out underneath the perimeter of the city, and the internal array is being drawn out. In the meantime, they’re working on the ingredients - getting the ground bloody enough for it to work.”

Mustang’s eyes narrowed again, this time almost angry. “Explain.”

“Think of a map of Amestris,” Theo said. “It’s a circle. It’s an  _ array.  _ And along the border, they’ve got the symbols drawn out - each one marks a point for ingredients. And if the ingredients are  _ humans-...”  _

“Border conflicts,” Mustang breathed. “You- are you telling me that those are a  _ conspiracy?  _ You want me to believe that the  _ Fuhrer  _ is involved in those?”

“The soldier in Ishval was a homunculus,” Theo told him, quietly. “He fired that shot deliberately.”

“This is insane.”

“I can do alchemy without a circle,” Theo snapped. “I can invent arrays in the span of a second. I have the chemical makeup of a human body  _ memorized,  _ to the gram. This is my whole fucking life, Mustang. Every second of it has been insane.” He reached up to his shoulder, putting his hand over the visible metal shards. “I did my first human transmutation when I was a kid, and since then, I’ve been involved in  _ six.  _ I know what I’m talking about.”

“Why should I believe this?” Mustang asked again. “You can’t expect me to take this on faith. Not this much. I don’t even know you.”

Words were on the tip of his tongue - the  _ I know you, though,  _ the proof of the statement. His knowledge of Mustang’s past and dreams and goals - hell, his knowledge of his  _ future _ , even. 

But it was all even crazier than the information he’d already given, and...really, what was he supposed to say? I did this once, and now we’re doing it again, because I was a pathetic excuse for a dad and husband and the universe saw fit to punish me? I’ve seen what you call  _ God  _ so many times we’re sick of each other? I’ve defied death and time and all rational laws of physics just to be standing here?

Smaller, pettier things? I owed you money from a stupid bet you never got to cash in on? You put your dreams on hold until everyone you cared about was safe? 

I used to take my wedding ring off to visit your office?

None of it was safe to say. 

Instead, he slumped a bit, and told him, “You’re not stupid, Mustang. Look me in the eyes and tell me I’m lying.”

“Not lying,” Mustang said immediately. “Just...wrong. You’ve got something  _ wrong…” _

Theo held his gaze steadily.

Mustang’s shoulders slowly drooped down. “...If this is true,” he said, slowly, “What are we doing about it?”

Theo nearly wept in relief. It wasn’t full faith, not yet, but Mustang was  _ listening,  _ and that was something. He hadn’t realized how important the man’s support had been to him until he had it back.

“I’m working on that,” Theo said. “I know what  _ he’s  _ planning, and I know my options, I just...need to get everything together. Which, right now, means making all the allies I can, and keeping them close. You were my first priority.” 

Mustang stared at him with an unreadable expression. As Theo watched, the colonel’s eyes trailed across his face, down slightly, hesitating, then to the side….

“What?” Theo asked, uncomfortable with the scrutiny. 

“You can put your hair back up, you know.”

Theo flushed having totally forgotten he’d let it down in the first place, and scrambled to scoop it back up. The bun he’d been using lately to keep it all out of his way was a bit too complicated to do blind, so he brought it into a messy ponytail and told himself he needed to remember to get that shit cut at some point, because he’d been taking back-to-back missions for a good few months and it was way too damn long now. 

“Thanks,” he muttered. “Forgot about it.”

“No problem,” Mustang replied. “I-...I’m going to give this to Maes.”

“No!”

Mustang blinked at him in shock at his yell, and Theo scrambled to correct it. 

“If you have to tell him, send him a letter,” Theo said. “With a messenger you know, not regular mail. And-...”

“And?”

“If you do,” Theo said, “please make sure to tell him to be careful about looking into it. The homunculi don’t care about anyone but the ones they can use. If they catch him digging, they  _ will  _ kill him.” 

Mustang gave a shallow, solemn nod. “I’ll make sure he knows.”

Anxiety churned Theo’s stomach, because that wasn’t a guarantee that Maes would keep his nose out of it, but it would have to do.

“Anything else?” Mustang asked. “If not, I’m going to go write this out, and I’ll see you in the morning at my office.”

“No, nothing,” Theo said, before immediately thinking of something else. “Wait, no, there is-... Shou Tucker.”

“Another ally?”

_ “Fuck  _ no,” Theo said. “He’s…” Well, he hadn’t technically done anything, yet. It was a couple years before he would even kill his wife, which meant…

...Which mean there was time.

“He lives somewhere around here,” Theo finished, weakly. “I need to talk to him- wait, no, not him. His wife. She’s...someone’s going to hurt her.”

“I’ll see if I can find her,” Mustang said. “Done?”

“Done,” Theo confirmed. “See you tomorrow, Mustang.”

The man nodded, turned, and left, leaving Theo to sag down onto the couch once he was gone.

_ That  _ was fun. Hopefully he didn’t have to do any more of that, for a while. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo, letting his hair down: look at me and tell me im crazy  
> mustang: i cant do that but it is for a very different reason than you think


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this was a bad idea. He hoped Theo appreciated this, he really did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> long chappie!!! someone asked about chapter lengths and I'd honestly wanted to extend them for a while, so we're testing a ~5k chapter length this time, and i'd like to hear your thoughts on the change (i.e. should i keep doing the long ones or spam y'all with multiple shorter ones)
> 
> anyway here's that gay shit

Roy extended his analysis of Theo Van Hohenheim a bit, after leaving his apartment.

He was definitely still a pain in the ass, but it wasn’t just his personality puzzling Roy, now. Theo came with a whole convoluted conspiracy theory tied up in his history, and…

...And, while he wanted to think the man was crazy, everything he’d seen added up. The metal in his shoulder proved his claims of human transmutation, he was capable of alchemic feats Roy hadn’t even thought possible, and…

_ Made of gold.  _ He’d thought Theo had a unique appearance, but seen his nearly-identical brothers and shrugged it off without much thought (beyond  _ damn,  _ at least). Gold hair and eyes against copper skin, though - that was the sort of thing you saw in elaborate historical paintings of Xerxes. 

There were other, far more sensible explanations for all of those things individually, but all together…

Not to mention, it was very elaborate to be fraudulent. 

The only way he could get any further was to send Maes a letter containing the most sensical explanation of the situation he could, and waiting to see what his friend found. 

Until he got a response, there was no point in trying to plan any further moves related to that information. It was best, then, to deal with the facts he was certain of - namely, that he had a new employee to find assignments for. 

He’d seek out Hawkeye, he decided - she’d help him figure out what Theo would need to do, as well as help him sort out his thoughts on the rest. 

And that left the name Theo had given him to dig up. He could give that to Hawkeye, too, he supposed, but Riza would probably shoot him if he dumped  _ everything  _ off on her. Maes would have enough to look into as it was, so he was out, too. 

Maybe…

Oh, this was a bad idea. He hoped Theo appreciated this, he really did. 

He was going to have to call in a favor. 

  
  
  
  


“Is he gone?”

Theo turned, watching as Al peeked out of the hallway. 

“Yeah,” he said. “Mustang just left. You guys are good to come out.”

Al vanished, then reappeared a moment later pushing Ed’s chair. “Did you seal the doors? We couldn’t hear  _ anything. _ ”

Theo’s lip twitched up in a smirk. “Tried to eavesdrop? I’m a bit smarter than that, Al, c’mon.”

Al looked up, squinting at the mess of Theo’s re-adjusted hair in suspicion. 

“Do we have food here?” Ed interrupted. 

Theo blinked, before swearing under his breath.

“That’s a ‘no,’” Ed muttered.

“Yeah, no, hold on,” Theo said. “Let me change back into my normal clothes, and we’ll go shopping with that advance pay from Mustang.”

Theo headed off, vanishing into his room, leaving the boys by themselves.

“...His hair-....”    
“I know!”

Ed and Al looked at each other, before both breaking out in giggles. 

He looked  _ ridiculous  _ like that.

  
  
  
  


Sibylle’s cool blue eyes narrowed as she examined her boss’ kid - mid twenties and full of himself, from what the Madam said, but a decent person overall and someone they were backing one hundred percent. 

‘One hundred percent’ was annoying, because she was pretty sure that didn’t leave any room for her to turn him down, if this ‘favor’ he asked was asking too much of her personal little branch of Madam Christmas’ operation out in East City. 

“I have thirteen girls and two men working for me,” she told him. “If this ‘favor’ puts a single one of them at risk, you’ll find out just how well girls in our line of work get to know a body.”

Roy grimaced, but shook his head. “It shouldn’t be dangerous, I don’t think. I need you to find someone for me.”

Sibylle squinted at him. “Must be important, if you’re calling on me. I’m not your aunt, kid. You take my time, you’re paying for it.”

“I will,” Mustang agreed, no hesitation. That was the thing she liked about him, he had  _ respect _ . “I’m not asking for me, really. Someone asked me to find them, and you’re my best chance at digging them up quickly.”

Sibylle tipped her head, curls sliding off one shoulder, long red nails tapping on the table before her. “Name?”

“Shou Tucker,” Mustang said. “My contact was looking for his wife, though, not him.”

Sibylle shifted forward, arms folding before her on the table, giving Mustang a look across the table through her lashes. “And my payment?”

The file that had been pinned under Mustang’s arms the whole conversation was finally slid across the table to her, and she flipped it open to eye its contents hungrily. Mustang never paid in cash, but he always paid well - what sort of things he was giving her this time, they must have been good.

Inside the folder, a photo of a rather handsome young man stared back at her. “New hire?” she asked.

Mustang choked in response, which had her looking up, raising an eyebrow at him.

_ “No,” _ the Madam’s nephew stressed. “He works for me, now. An alchemist. A supposedly famous one, too.”

Sibylle looked down, thumbing through the papers. She grinned wickedly when one of them was revealed to be a report in Maes Hughes’ carefully written code, as the man only ever provided the best tips. “And he’s of interest to us, because…?”

“He’s a ghost story,” Mustang said. “No one knows where he came from, and he won’t say. He’s going to be in East City for a while, and I have the feeling he’s not going to be quiet about it. If he stirs anything up…”

“Worried about us, Pony?”

The childhood nickname had Mustang letting out a heavy sigh. “You’ll be fine. No, I feel like he’s about to start digging up a lot of things, and keeping your eyes on him might get you some interesting new intel.”

“I’ll see what we can find for your contact,” she said, moving to stand, signalling the end of their meeting. “And I’ll let you know if this payment goes through. If not, I might steal him from you. He’s damn pretty.”

Mustang gave another sigh, this one almost like an _ ‘I know.’  _ He left quickly, though, so she didn’t have the time to call him on it - something she suspected was intentional. 

She’d definitely have to keep an eye on this man - even if he wasn’t anything interesting by himself, the Madam always paid well for updates on her brat, and this was certainly looking like a good one. 

  
  
  
  


Theo sat on the couch, one of his father’s alchemy journals cracked open on his lap as he carefully untangled the code hiding his secrets. He wasn’t sure if it was his latest pass through the gate, or the return of his long-lost alchemy, but he had been bursting with ideas and theories since he got back. The transfer array had been his first project, and the seeking array came along the path to it, but he was nowhere near done. 

If he lived through the Promised Day again, maybe he’d publish some watered-down versions of his research. That was definitely something to worry about  _ later,  _ though, after-...

“Granny wants to talk to you!” 

Theo’s head snapped up, eyes locking Al’s eager smile, then trailing sideways to lock on where Ed was holding up the phone at the far end of its cord. 

“Oh no,” Theo muttered, setting the journal aside and walking to take the phone with all the enthusiasm of a man sent to the gallows. He took the phone from a mischievous-looking Ed with heavy suspicion, putting it up to his ear with a tentative, “Hello?”

“Boys say you have an apartment up there,” Pinako’s voice came crackling through. “Is it clean?”

“...I literally just got here,” Theo said. “How the fuck would I make it dirty?”

“Can it be  _ sterilized,  _ dumbass,” Pinako snapped at him. “If it can, I’m coming up to work on Ed’s port some more. It sounds like it’s making good progress healing, but I want to check it for myself. I wouldn’t put it past Ed to lie if it’s hurting him.”

“Oh.” Theo felt a bit silly, having mostly forgotten that was something they’d been planning to do. “Yeah, it’s not falling apart or anything. Everything’s stable, none of the material in the walls is too old or damaged-...”

“Are you tearing into the walls of a place you just moved into?”

Theo snorted. “Not physically? New array. I can use deconstruction to-...”

“Amestrian.”

“I can scan for things,” he summarized. “Like a radar, but with alchemy. There’s nothing interesting around here, as far as I could tell.”

“Sounds useful,” Pinako allowed. “I’ll get our tickets, then.”

“‘Our?’” Theo echoed, weakly. 

“I’m not leaving my ten year old granddaughter by  _ herself!  _ Your two brats can at least look out for each other. Who knows what Winry would get up to if I left her alone?”

There was a distant, offended-sounding shout over the phone, and Pinako’s voice went distant for a moment to bicker with it. 

“Okay,” Theo breathed, getting the feeling his part was done, and passed the phone back to Ed. At the boys’ curious looks, he told them, “Pinako and Winry are coming to visit. To look at your leg,” he added, to Ed. “It’s only a four hour train ride, so I guess we’ll be seeing them soon.”

Ed grimaced, likely anticipating the pain of being fussed over, both in the literal sense from the port and the sense of his cripplingly antisocial personality. Al, on the other hand, looked cheered, almost excited.

He’d leave them to it, he decided, as Al nabbed the phone from his brother to declare it his turn to talk. 

Hopefully Ed’s port was fine, and they’d be good for however long it took them to build his leg. It had taken over half a year, before, but he didn’t remember how much of that was recovery time from the port and how much was actual construction.

Either way, Ed would probably be stuck with his chair for a while, even if Pinako rushed it for him like she had Theo’s own automail. Luckily, he didn’t seem to mind it too much, other than when Al took command of his steering and wheeled him somewhere he didn’t want to be.

Like near people. Theo had assumed his avoidant personality was built off experience with people trying to kill him, but apparently it had been  _ nature _ rather than  _ nurture _ . Ed only ever seemed to care about people in the context of them being either his brother or someone he wanted to fight. 

And Mustang. Ed seemed generally confused by Mustang, which… honestly, that made two of them. 

  
  
  


“I'm not coming back.”

The words were distant echoes that took a moment to process for Theo, but he recognized them as his own. 

Unlike the last dream, being played as a puppet by the memory, Theo was watching this one from the side, a spectre there merely to observe. 

He was in Mustang's office - the big one, from the past/future Theo once lived in. The man himself sat sprawled lazily in his chair, and in front of his desk stood Ed. Ed, not yet Theo, but still vastly different than the boy from his waking hours. 

“You don't have to be an alchemist to be in the military, Edward.”

Mustang's argument was just as annoying to his past self within the dream as it had been in real life, going by Ed's scowl. “Yeah, because I want to be one of your canon fodder soldiers or sit at some desk all day.”

Mustang raised a brow. “Don't you sit at a desk all day right now?”

Ed made a rude gesture in response, which Theo mirrored from the sidelines. 

“Alchemy research is the best thing I can be doing right now,” he said. “I know too much about it to just throw it out.”

“So work with me,” Mustang offered. “The military hires private consultants all the time, offers public bounties for certain criminals-...you could pick and choose the jobs you worked. Just...don't give up on it. You were one of our best. Losing your alchemy doesn't negate that.”

Ed and Mustang stared at each other for a long moment, a silent battle in the exchange. 

Theo wondered at it. Had he thought this odd, at the time? He couldn't remember, but…

...But, without the frustration of the conversation shutting him down, Theo was suddenly  _ aware _ of Mustang in a way he hadn't been at the time. 

Why had Mustang wanted him to stay in the military so badly? This, combined with the last memory, with Riza's cryptic comment…

Was it possible that  _ he  _ had been a contingency? That Mustang hadn't wanted to reach the top without his choice of team, and  _ he  _ had been a part of that?

Had he been the one holding Mustang back?

The memory faded, and when Theo woke up, he could feel nothing but a cold dissatisfaction. 

  
  
  


Theo left the boys in the apartment in the morning with the highly specific instructions of “please don’t kill each other,” setting a couple of alchemic traps for the doors and windows as he went (being sure to warn the boys not to touch them, because killing  _ themselves  _ was  _ also _ banned). 

Them taken care of until he could get back to them, Theo made his way to Eastern Headquarters.

The path to Mustang's office was one he hadn't had to walk in a long time (except, of course, the day before), but the route came easily to him, his memory continuing to show itself abnormally sharp. 

The team were already assembled when Theo strolled through the office door, and he waved to them in greeting as he strolled past, going straight for Mustang's own more private office in the back. 

He'd always been of the personal opinion that the layout was stupid, because it meant the team got interrupted anytime someone needed to come see Mustang, but the colonel himself had always countered his point with talk about psychology and politics and how it was good for people to see his subordinates hard at work on their way to him, and so he'd tried just not to mention it. 

Mustang looked tired when Theo stepped through his door. It was the first thing he noticed, followed immediately by the fact that his Eastern Headquarters office was, comparatively, fucking tiny. In Theo's time (not to sound old), Mustang’s office had been stupidly large and luxurious. The only constant between the two - aside from the obvious - was the couch. It was still relatively new, sitting in front of him now, but Theo had seen it worn out and ugly and wedged into a shameful corner of Mustang's offices from General rank forward. 

(Collapsing on the thing after a long mission had been a custom he'd taken comfort in long after he swore to stop, and he had the sneaking suspicion that his love of it was the only reason it survived move after move. He'd been quite happy with the idea that Mustang would rather keep the eyesore around then deal with him being irate.)

“Morning,” Theo greeted, giving a lazy mimicry of a salute. “Got something for me?”

“I said I wouldn't send you out until you'd settled,” Mustang reminded him. “And I would also like to have time to look into some of your claims. In the meantime, you're a regular employee.” He reached out, sectioning off a stack of papers and sliding them forward. “These are yours.”

Paperwork. He was being assigned  _ paperwork.  _

Theo was going to fucking kill him. 

  
  
  
  


Theo’s seemingly endless pool of skills and impressive qualities  _ did _ , in fact, have a limit, and that limit was paperwork. 

Roy turned through the pages in front of him, brought in with the latest collection of completed works Riza had brought him to sign off on. 

Theo's handwriting started off on each form neat, but it must have been something he actively had to focus on, because the more he wrote, the harder it got to read. The size was inconsistent, as well, with him sometimes cramming whole paragraphs into spaces meant for single lines and vise versa. 

He also had no concept of professionalism, apparently, or just didn't realize people other than Roy would have to read it, because he had a lot of notes scribbled into empty spaces in the margins of requisition forms that had been passed in or field reports from investigators under him. 

In his defense,  _ reading  _ some of those notes revealed they were actually fairly insightful. That didn't override the fact that he still, even in writing, only addressed Roy using profanity. 

Roy was so in over his head, with this guy. 

  
  
  
  


The woman at the front desk caught Roy on his way out, passing him an envelope sealed with a kiss in dark red lipstick. 

Sibylle, reporting already? He tore it open.

Inside, there was what looked like a cocktail napkin, which he unfolded to find had an address scrawled across it. 

She worked fast. He must have given her better information than even he'd thought. 

He turned on his heel, heading out in the opposite direction from his house, toward the military apartments. 

He needed to pass this along- and possibly get some more answers in the process. 

  
  
  


Pinako called from the train station when they arrived in East City, getting Theo's address to give their cab driver. 

The apartment was nice enough, a decent place for a young couple or small family, and she could see the three boys making it work as long as they all got along alright. Ed and Al had never had a problem with each other, but siblings tended to bicker, and she was sure that the three of them would have their squabbles in time. 

She set to work right away, dragging Ed into the boys’ room to poke and prod at his port, testing to make sure the nerves were adapting well to the connections. 

There was, however, one problem with her working environment in the apartment: Theo. 

“Stop hovering,” she snapped, for what felt like the thousandth time. 

“Sorry,” Theo said, again, even though she doubted it was sincere. “What else am I supposed to do?”

Pinako huffed. “Take Al and Winry and get something to bring back for dinner. Tell Winry to take my wallet to pay- you're probably tight on funds at the moment, Mr. Appears-Out-Of-Magic.”

“Alchemy,” Theo corrected. “You don't have to-...”

“Get the hell out, Theo.”

“Yes, ma'am.”

  
  
  


Ms. Boden had been more than happy to let Roy in, worryingly enough, and let him head up without an escort this time. This had him in front of Theo’s apartment door again, one day out from his first visit, tentatively knocking on the door and hoping that this visit cleared some things up. 

When it opened, though, Theo was not on the other side. 

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Roy immediately apologized to the old woman. “I must have the wrong-...”

“I kicked Theo out,” the woman interrupted. “If you want him, come in and wait.”

She turned without any further comment, heading back into the apartment, door standing open for Roy to come through. 

After a moment’s hesitation, he followed, because...well, he really didn’t have anything better to do. 

“You kicked him out?” Roy questioned, as he shut the door behind himself. 

The woman paused in the middle of the living room, turning back to face Roy. “He wouldn’t stop standing over my shoulder. It was insulting. I know how to handle automail, I’m not going to hurt the boy.”

Oh.  _ Oh,  _ that’s right, this was the Rockbell woman, the automail mechanic responsible for the port on Ed’s leg. 

“You came up to work on Ed?” he ventured. “Was something damaged?”

“It’s a new port,” the woman replied, in a tone that suggested she thought he had a screw loose himself for asking. “I needed to make sure it’s healing, so I can eventually stick a leg on it.” She turned away, starting to head deeper into the apartment again, muttering, “If anything breaks, it’ll be  _ Theo’s _ leg. Automail isn’t meant to be neglected like that.”

Roy’s brain stalled out. “Automail?” he echoed. “Theo has automail?”

He had seen the metal shards of Theo’s shoulder, knew automail was something he’d had in the past, but assumed that was all. It made sense that he would be missing pieces after being involved in  _ several _ human transmutations, but if he’d gotten an arm back, it also would have made sense for him to be more-or-less whole. 

The Rockbell woman let out a heavy sigh. “You’re Mustang, right?”

“Roy Mustang,” he confirmed. “And you’re Mrs. Rockbell?”

“Pinako,” she corrected. She crossed the room, coming back to stand in front of him. “Theo’s missing his left leg, too. I’m not surprised he didn’t share that, but it’s better someone knows, in case he goes and screws it up.” She eyed him with a strange look, one he couldn’t identify. “He should have told you, if only for that.”

“It’s rather difficult to get him to talk about  _ anything,”  _ Roy told her. “He’s very private.”

To his surprise, Pinako’s eyebrows shot up, her expression highly skeptical. “That boy wouldn’t  _ stop  _ telling me things,” she said. “If he’s not sharing, it’s not him that’s the problem. Though-....” She brought a hand up, rubbing under her mouth, looking contemplative. “Yeah...I imagine he wouldn’t put much trust in you.”

Roy wasn’t sure if he should be offended, or just grateful he might finally have a lead on Theo’s behavior. “No? Why not?”

Pinako gave him a very narrow stare. After a moment of silence, she told him flat-out, “Theo was in Ishval.”

Roy’s blood ran cold. “He was? Was he fighting?”

She shook her head. “He said he was out there after some Ishvalan researcher’s notes, but he ended up in my son’s care. He’s got a Rockbell automail leg - that’s the only reason I caught it, why I made him tell me. I expect he doesn’t say anything if he can help it. To recover from automail surgery, and have a custom prosthesis… He must have been in that camp a long time. There’s no telling what all he saw.”

It explained a lot - Theo’s distaste for him, his cool disregard for the military, the increasingly intense paranoia he kept revealing… 

What it  _ didn’t  _ explain was why, if the military was really infested by some alchemic cult, Theo would have trusted  _ Roy  _ of all people to help. Had it just been convenience? Had he placed all his bets on the first person to offer him a chance?

Maybe it was his own ego in the way, but it felt like more than that. It felt like Theo  _ trusted  _ him, if not with his own secrets than at least the boys in his care. 

“You go ahead and think on that for a while,” Pinako said, heading off again. “I have automail to service.”

She was gone before Roy could think of anything else to say. Left alone to his thoughts, Roy sat down on the couch, settling in to wait.

  
  
  
  


“We’ve walked across half this damn city,” Theo said.  _ “How  _ are you still running around?” 

Al and Winry both looked at him with wide, innocent eyes.

He had experience with both of those looks, but it was unfortunately experience in giving into them, because he’d really never built up a tolerance for upsetting either of them. Them being  _ ten  _ only made it worse. 

“If you need something to do, come help me carry this shit,” Theo griped. The two came to stand at his side quickly, taking a bag each, and the three set to walking back to the apartment with their Cretan take-out. 

“Do you think Ed’s okay?” Al asked quietly after a moment of silent walking. “Automail is supposed to hurt a lot, right?”

“He’s tough,” Theo said. “He’ll be okay.”

“Tough doesn’t mean anything,” Winry complained. “Automail is in the nerves, not the muscles! Just because he won’t say anything doesn’t mean it doesn’t hurt.”

“He wants it, though,” Theo told her. “He  _ wants  _ that leg, and if you want something bad enough, it’s worth the pain to get it.” Realizing that was probably bad advice for two already-impulsive children, he amended, “It feels that way, anyway. Really depends on what it is you’re after. A leg isn’t so bad.” 

“I guess you know,” Winry murmured. “I know how automail works, ‘cause Granny taught me, but you actually  _ have  _ it.”

Theo nodded. “The best leg in the world, right now. Fully customized. Even if we never did figure out what the right balance of chrome-to-steel was.”

“High!” Winry offered. “Chrome is really good for automail! It’s just so expensive…”

Theo laughed. “Yeah, I know. We were trying to figure out how much I could afford to have, since I broke the damn thing all the time.”

“You broke your leg a lot?” Al asked. “Did that hurt?”

“Oh, yeah,” Theo said, easy and dismissive. “But it was my own fault. I never let anything heal. I pushed my recovery times  _ hard,  _ and I’d be walking around on a leg that got attached half an hour ago.” 

“That’s-..!”

“I know,” Theo laughed again at Winry’s outrage - familiar, if much more mild than her adult self. “I got in trouble a lot. Paid for it, too.”

“That many repairs was probably really expensive,” Winry said. 

Al stared up at him, curious. “Are you rich?”

Theo snorted. “Hell no. I had a lot of disposable income for a while-...” At two blank looks, he clarified, “I was earning a lot more money than I needed, so I just kind of threw it around. Eventually it all caught up to me, and I actually had to start paying bills and stuff, but it was nice while it lasted.” He gestured with one of the bags in his hands. “Pinako had to pay for these for a reason. Right now, I’ve got exactly as much money as Mustang gave me. At least I don’t have to pay him back for it.” 

“Don’t you work for him, now?” 

Theo shot Al a look. “Working for him isn’t the same as having to actually give him money. I worked for-...I worked for this one guy for, like, 15 years, and I owed him 520 cens for at least twelve of those.” He shook his head. “We had a deal that I’d only pay him back when-...Ah. Well. The point was, I hate owing people money. Or anything, really. I try to stay on even ground with people.”

“You just said you never paid that guy back,” Al pointed out. 

“He doesn’t count,” Theo dismissed. “He owed me favors out the ass, so I considered us even, so long as he kept giving me work to do and I kept getting it done. We had a  _ system.”  _

The apartment building was finally visible, and Theo picked up the pace a bit to try and get back to it, eager to check on Ed, as well as to  _ eat.  _

“...Do you miss him?”

Theo nearly tripped over his own feet at the question, looking down at Al incredulously. “Do I-  _ what?” _

“Miss him,” Al repeated. “Or your other friends...Whoever you had before you came here?”

Theo’s shoulders slumped, originally relaxing at the innocent intentions and then becoming heavily dismayed with the actual answer to that question.

“I miss everyone,” he said. “I miss them like crazy, but...They’re gone.”

Al tipped his head. “Gone? What do you mean?”

Theo gave him a weak smile. “I lost all those people,” he said. “My family, my friends...they’re all gone. I can’t get them back.”

Al’s eyes went wide, and Winry’s little hands wrapped around his arm, setting the bag of take-out boxes on the ground to do so. 

“We’re your friends, now,” Winry told him. “And you have Al and Ed, and those guys Al said you hang out with.”

Theo looked to Al for context. 

“Mr. Hughes,” Al clarified. “And the Colonel.” 

Hughes he would allow, because he  _ did  _ actually enjoy the man’s company, even if he hadn’t actively sought it out much while in the man’s house. Mustang, though-...

...Well, he actually didn’t have anything to stand on, there, given that the Colonel had literally been at his house the night before of Theo’s own invitation.

Instead of trying to defend himself, then, he picked up the bags that the children had set down, and walked in silence back to their apartment building. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> al: do you miss your friends  
> theo: hHAHHAHA (slamming the closet door, desperately pinning back a wave of skeletons) NO NOT AT ALL IM FINE WHY DO YOU ASK


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> If he'd peaked the curiosity of the Homunculi, and they'd come to investigate, they wouldn't hesitate to go through Pinako in the process.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back!  
> this chappie is short again bc as much as I really wanna stick with 5k chapters, this took 9 years to write and now that ive beaten that stretch of writers block i wanted to give you guys SOMETHING after my radio silence  
> (plus, people enjoying my stuff makes me so much more eager to write)  
> here you go kiddos!!!

The apartment building was a welcome sight after the sort of long walk they'd had to take in both directions, and greeting Ms. Boden was a relief after Theo had been stuck very desperately trying to ignore the fact that the two ten year olds with him were people he had only a month prior known as grown adults.

That was, until Ms. Boden's eyes widened at the sight of him, sheer panic flooding her face.

Theo was on high alert immediately. “What is it?”

“I didn't know you were out, Major Hohenheim,” she said in a rush.

He was too focused on the steely forced calm washing over him to bother correcting the name. “What happened?” A thought occurred to him, and he might have prayed if he were the sort that bought into that kind of thing. “Did someone come by?”

“Yes, I sent him up, I'm so sorry,” she said. “I suppose your other guest must have let him in, because he hasn't come back down.”

Fuck. Fuck, fuck, _why_ did he leave Ed behind? Pinako was fearsome to Theo, who would never dare defend himself from a blow she chose to grace him with, but…

...But, if he'd peaked the curiosity of the Homunculi, and they'd come to investigate, they wouldn't hesitate to go through Pinako in the process.

He was moving before he even realized it, flying up the stairs to his floor, scrambling to his door and dropping the bags at his sides in the hall to focus on unlocking it and throwing it open.

 _Gluttony is manageable, and an idiot._ Theo reasoned along the way. _Lust has a range, which puts the kids in danger, but she said ‘him.’ Greed probably hasn't defected yet, but he can be reasoned with. Pride and Wrath are definitely still in Central. It is very unlikely to be Sloth, but if it is, pull out all the stops. And if it’s none of_ them- _...._

Roy Mustang was sitting on his couch.

At least, he _hoped_ it was Mustang. Envy was a class A pain in the ass that he did _not_ have the time for.

“Mustang,” Theo forced out, trying to keep his expression neutral. He heard the kids coming in behind him, and shifted quickly, extending a hand out to stop them in the doorway. “What are you doing here?”

Mustang frowned at him, eyes shifting down to his side - to the hand he blocked Al and Winry with, maybe, or perhaps the kids themselves. “I found something on that name you gave me. I figured I’d give it to you while you were stuck idle.”

There was a problem, with Theo, one he recognized in himself constantly and yet had never really managed to compensate for: he was a prideful asshole even at his worst, and while he could look down on his own social skills or common sense or general talents, he’d never had doubt in his own alchemy for a second. It had led him blind into human transmutations far too many times now, kept him stumbling into Truth’s white room, and now it had him relaxing in the face of probably-real-Mustang. He trusted his alchemy, he trusted his arrays, and the scanning array was no exception. The homunculi had no way of knowing what he and Mustang talked about, and while the statement was vague enough to be a coincidence-...

...Well, honestly, the homunculi weren’t very subtle, in Theo’s experience. They hid their influence only so much as to not make it _obvious,_ but had never had a problem with Theo knowing someone was behind all the bullshit in the country. Envy, in particular, was a hotheaded asshole that probably wouldn’t be able to master that perfect Mustang expression of confusion.

It helped, too, that Theo knew Mustang two lifetimes over, and now that he was looking for it, he could see the authenticity of the man in everything from the way he sat, half-relaxed but alert, to the wary shift of his eyes across the apartment that kept settling back on Theo with mounting concern.

Theo dropped his hand, letting the kids ease cautiously into the room. “What’d you find?” he asked, watching the kids bring his discarded bags inside and taking a second to be grateful he didn’t just scatter their food across the hallway in his blind panic. He closed the door behind them with one last scanning look through the hall, tapping the tips of his fingers together softly to activate a seeking array as subtly as possible.

The hall read clean, as did the apartment. Energy greeted him, three bright alchemist's fires burning around him, two duller life signals among them showing the presence of non-alchemists.

He lingered a moment on each, memorizing its feel. It would do him good to be able to recognize them, he figured. Al’s was warm and welcoming, the faintest of the three, but that was likely only due to his age and inexperience, as it was still utterly brilliant. Ed’s was erratic, wild, sparking out and spreading in waves, constantly reaching for the faded-yet-steady energy that must have been Pinako.

Mustang’s was strong, to no surprise, but instead of the wildfire Theo had expected, he felt more...contained. A central force, destructive if weaponized but carefully under control. A bonfire in the middle of the woods, one stray spark away from disaster, but too closely managed to be a risk where it didn’t intend to be.

Theo dropped the array quickly, glad no one besides him could here his oddly poetic way of overthinking things. Except maybe Truth, but Theo wasn’t really sure if that thing could _hear_ his thoughts, or if it just knew Theo that well from their years of dealing with each other.

Bringing him back to the present, Mustang rose of the couch, approaching with a piece of paper extended. Theo took it eagerly, looking at the neat handwriting scrawled across a _napkin_ of all things.

“Did you hit on her in a bar or something?” he asked, eyeing Mustang with heavy distaste. “She’s _married,_ you know.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Mustang said. “I had a friend do it, instead.”

“Gross,” Theo muttered, but immediately turned his attention to memorizing the address.

It was on the outer edge of the city, if he recognized that street name right. If Tucker wasn’t a state alchemist, yet, then he would still be...well, wherever he’d lived before then.

Wherever this address was.

“Thanks,” he said, because over a decade out of Mustang’s direct command made it a little easier to attempt to show him some courtesy. “You probably just saved her life, if I don’t fuck it up. I owe you.”

“No,” Mustang said, an odd note to his tone that Theo couldn’t quite place. “Nothing owed.”

Theo shot Mustang a narrow-eyed look of suspicion, trying to find an explanation in his carefully blank expression. The Mustang he knew was a greedy, power-hungry bastard, eager to hold any and every debt over his head.

Or, well, he wasn’t, but he definitely didn’t just let stuff go like that. This Mustang had been doing this a lot, though: ending up in a situation and handling it exactly the opposite of how he’d expect the man to. Did knowing Mustang as an adult, standing on even footing, really change their relationship that much? How much of the Mustang he knew was based on the circumstances, and how much was the way he actually was?

Competitive and controlling nature lingered beneath the surface in their interactions, Mustang handling himself as though he were simply waiting for Theo to take notice of his talents and be thoroughly impressed, but he didn’t engage the way he used to. Under Mustang’s command as a teen, Theo had been met with about a 70-30 split of negative to positive reinforcement, his actions usually met with joking and teasing, only the best of his moves being complimented outright without any strings attached. Mustang had been harsh, yet friendly, and Theo had come to the conclusion that they didn’t like each other personally but each wanted the other to succeed.

This Mustang seemed to be having trouble deciding what he thought of Theo, and it was making things weird.

Which, to be fair, many things made it weird. The weird memory-dreams he kept having made it weird. Truth’s cryptic prodding comments made it weird. The fact that _he_ was the older one now, that made it _super_ weird, even if he _had_ managed to shave ten full years off their age gap.

Mustang, possibly to escape Theo’s highly suspect squinting, brought him back to the moment by asking, “What sort of danger is she in? Does it have to do with…” His eyes trailed to the side, to the kids, and he finished, “...what you were telling me about?”

“Not really,” Theo said, looking down at the address again. “Her husband’s just a fucking _monster,_ and I want her to take her daughter and get as far away from that guy as possible.”

“If you want her to leave her husband,” Mustang said, voice approaching something close to teasing, “why get offended by the idea of someone hitting on her?”

Theo scowled, refusing to look up, shooting Mustang a rude gesture instead. “It’s an insult to _her_ character, to treat her like her marriage doesn’t matter, not his. Take it from a shit husband.”

There was a silence so long, Theo thought he must have simply zoned out and missed something, so he looked up again at last.

Mustang was watching him closely. “You’re married?”

Theo gave him a highly unimpressed look. “Hughes didn’t already tell you?”

“He said you lost family,” Mustang admitted. “But _you_ haven’t said anything about it to me, so I thought I’d ask.”

Theo hesitated, then turned to the side, looking to Al and Winry. “Can you take that stuff into the kitchen, and then go get Ed and Pinako?” As they (reluctantly) obeyed, scampering off, Theo turned back to Mustang. “I was married, yeah. I was really bad at it, too. Never even liked wearing a ring, spent all my time working, that kind of stuff. And now I’m past the time I could make up for it, too, so…” He gave a helpless shrug. “There you go. There’s my dirty laundry. Part of it, anyway.”

Mustang had an unreadable expression on his face, watching Theo closely. “...Thank you for trusting me. With all of this.”

Theo scoffed before he could think better of it. “I don’t know if it counts as trusting _you,”_ he said. “I, just-....I used to work for this guy, and you remind me of him.” He shifted a bit, looking away, fixing his eyes on the wall. “Less of an asshole, I guess, but that’s probably because I’m not sixteen anymore.”

“I see,” Mustang said. “Should I be flattered, or offended?”

“Probably.”

Mustang laughed at that, taking a step forward. “I suppose I should head out, now, if-...”

“Wait,” Theo stopped him, holding up a hand.

They stared at each other for a moment, Theo not entirely certain what he’d _intended_ to add to the conversation, drawing a hard blank on follow-up statements.

“....You could join us?” he offered, weakly. “I’m not kicking you out after you did me a favor.”

Mustang watched him a moment, before he gave a small, self-satisfied looking smile. “I’d be happy to.”

Somehow, Theo had the feeling the universe was laughing at him for this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> comments on the last chapter: haha theo finding roy in his apartment is gonna be so funny  
> me, looking at theo's 9 layer ptsd cake: haha... yeah....


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You probably can’t even feel when the joints are dirty, can you?”
> 
> Theo blinked at her. “Um. Like, when the movement gets stiff?”
> 
> Pinako made a strangled noise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a note before this chapter begins....ed's birthday is feb 3. he burned his house down on oct 3. they are separate dates. this is relevant this chapter ;)

Theo was a strange man.

Roy wasn’t really quite sure what had made him so immediately suspicious of his visit, but he’d definitely been on alert, even going so far as to block the kids off in the hall until Roy had revealed the reason for his visit. 

As though his intentions were unclear, and he could have been a threat to them, just with his presence. What did Theo think he would have done?

“Brought food? Oh, it’s you.”

Roy looked down at the greeting of Pinako, smiling. “Theo invited me to stay, if that’s alright,” he told her.

“Not my house,” she said, shrugging.  _ “Is  _ my food, but I’ll be getting my money back soon enough.” 

“Oh?” Theo appeared again at Roy’s side, looking eagerly at Pinako. “Is he ready for a leg, then?”

“Healed brilliantly,” she confirmed. “I expected him to blister around the port during the train ride, if nothing else. Vibration like that is hell on a fresh port.”

“Theo helped!” Alphonse informed the woman cheerily. “He told Ed how to sit so that his leg didn’t shake, and he felt a lot better.”

Pinako looked to him, then back to Theo. “You did?”

“I didn’t know it could blister,” Theo said, as though this invalidated the entire act. “I just know it’s really annoying to feel the pieces rattling around. I sort of rushed my recovery from automail surgery, and W- uh, well, a mechanic who looked at it said I probably killed a lot of nerves in my leg in the process, and that’s why I don’t get very good feedback from it at times. I figured I should probably try and keep him from doing the same thing.”

Pinako narrowed her eyes at him. “Rushed,” she said, like she was testing the word. “How quickly did you recover from your initial operation?” 

“About a year.”

Roy knew very little about automail, but he’d always heard that it was a heavily taxing surgery with a hard recovery, and judging by the look on Pinako’s face, it was meant to be a much longer process than that, as well. 

“No wonder you let it get in such a state,” Pinako said. “You probably can’t even feel when the joints are dirty, can you?” 

Theo blinked at her. “Um. Like, when the movement gets stiff?”

Pinako made a strangled noise. “Theo, you’re meant to have nerve sensors in the joints, that send signals when something is broken or obstructed.”

Theo shrugged weakly at her. “When something bad happens, it goes numb and stops responding. That’s the only way I know anything’s wrong.”

Pinako looked as though this conversation was aging her ten years with every new thing Theo said. “I’m looking at your leg after dinner,” she informed him, in a tone that made it clear she was not taking an argument for it. “Now, what did you get?” 

_ Cretan _ was the answer to that, apparently, and a lot of it. Roy was actually slightly concerned by the amount until Ed was brought into the room by his younger brother and he got to witness the boys put away a good third of it by themselves. 

A look shot to Theo earned him an amused smirk in response, and Roy watched as the eldest brother served himself another third of the food, leaving the final portion to be divided up amongst normal human stomachs. 

Absolutely mental, this family, Roy thought. Everything about them -  _ them  _ mostly meaning  _ Theo -  _ was larger than life. Theo was a god crammed into a human form, as far as Roy could tell - and crammed quite badly, given the amount of things that didn’t seem to be working for him. He was carefree and paranoid all at once, quick-witted and yet utterly oblivious, rude and crass and yet incomparably kind… 

And he was a ghost story, too, apparently, given that Roy still couldn’t find a single thing on where the hell the man came from. 

Which reminded him…

“Theo,” Roy said, catching the man’s attention, pulling it away from where he was cramming a somewhat frightening quantity of noodles into his mouth. “I still have paperwork to fill out for you, but I need a little more information for it.”

“Like what?” Theo asked - only, he did so while clearly forgetting that he was still eating, so it came out around noodles as a muffled,  _ “Li’watt?” _

“You can’t talk with food in your mouth,” Winry informed him, speaking with the authority of someone who had heard this rule be reinforced a thousand times.

“Sorry,” Theo said, only slightly less mangled than the last response, and took the time to finish chewing and swallowing his food before trying again. “What did you need?”

“Well, basics, mainly,” Roy said. “I only got your full name from the Fuhrer using it, I don’t know where you’re from - I don’t even have your  _ birthday.”  _

Theo paused, noodles midway through the air on their way to be shoveled down as ravenously as the previous bunch, and looked a bit like Roy had just presented him with a ticking bomb and asked him to defuse it. 

“...You have my name now,” Theo said, after a moment. “And where I’m from doesn’t matter, unless you need a city for a birth certificate or something, and I don’t need anything that far back.”

“And your birthday?” Roy prompted.

Theo’s face pinched, and his eyes flicked down the length of the table, over various faces. He looked like he was thinking, which made Roy nervous as to what he was about to say, because  _ surely  _ his  _ birthday  _ didn’t require this much thought.

When he spoke, though, it was quiet, defeated, and - most importantly - just a date. “October 3rd.” 

“That’s soon!” Al pointed out, sounding excited. “How old will you be, Theo? How old are you right now?”

Theo seemed to relax a tiny bit, apparently objecting to this question less than the last, for whatever reason. “I’m 29, right now.”

“Wow,” Winry said. “You’re way older than I thought you were!”

Theo looked affronted. Roy bit back a laugh, though he did have to privately agree - Theo’s age brought to mind stuffy generals and other officials Roy had met over the years, which couldn’t be more different from the impression he got from the alchemist himself. Theo was twitchy and suspicious, yes, but he also seemed to take everything only half seriously at best, and was brash and reckless in a way that usually spoke of immaturity. 

Or, at least, that was what Roy had gathered, after hearing stories along the lines of ‘I want to defeat the Fuhrer’ and ‘I forced myself to recover from automail surgery within a year.’ 

“What’re you gonna do for your birthday?” Winry asked. 

Theo smiled at her for a second, before seeming to process what she asked, and his face when sheet white and utterly blank.

“Well,” he said, lowly, “Any plans I had are pretty much cancelled, so...whatever’s happening around here by then.”

Silence fell over the table as everyone recalled the circumstances under which Theo was joining them.

The dinner proceeded quietly from there, the atmosphere pretty thoroughly defeated. 

  
  
  
  


“Thank you for inviting me to stay,” Roy said, stepping toward the door, Theo walking with him as they went. Roy doubted it had anything to do with him, specifically, and more to do with escaping the chore distribution that was going on in the kitchen. “It was kind of you.”

Theo shrugged noncommittally. “Thanks for staying, I guess. Sorry to make it weird.”

Roy opened his mouth to protest, but Theo just quirked an eyebrow at him, and he let out a defeated sigh and shook his head. “It happens,” he said, instead of the denial he’d wanted to give, and Theo chuckled quietly in what he hoped was appreciation.

“See you tomorrow?” Roy asked, hand on the doorknob to leave.

“Unfortunately,” Theo replied, making Roy laugh. 

“Please don’t leave rude notes in the paperwork tomorrow?”

“Then why bother doing it at all?”

Roy shook his head, still laughing, and opened the door. “See you tomorrow,” he said, more firmly this time, as a goodbye and not a question.

“See you,” Theo returned, and Roy slipped out of the apartment.

On either side of the door, out of sight of one another, both men let out hefty sighs, running over the evening in their minds from two very different perspectives. 

  
  
  


At this point, Theo thought, as he looked around the dream rendition of Mustang’s office, someone had to just be fucking with him. 

He watched the spectre of Mustang at his desk, exchanging words to a young woman dressed in such a way that Theo wanted to break through the veil of invisibility he had to observe these dreams by and apologize to her for whatever the men had said to her on her way in. 

He watched, confused, as the woman delivered to Mustang a lipstick-marked envelope, and took a manilla folder in exchange. As she turned to leave, she walked right past his past self, who had barged into the office with all the bluster he was famous for. 

Theo watched as Past-Ed faltered in the center of the office, watching the woman on her way out, staring at the door in bewilderment as it closed behind her. 

“Edward,” Mustang greeted him from the desk. “I have your-...”

“Who was that?”

Theo frowned. Ed’s voice was sharp, and his eyes were narrowed, and Theo couldn’t remember any of this. He couldn’t remember this meeting, couldn’t remember what about her had caught his attention, but clearly there was  _ something  _ alarming about her.

With strong discomfort settling in, he looked down, noting that this Ed was not wearing his ring. 

“A date,” Mustang said. “Are you going to get this file or not?” 

Ed rounded on him, but didn’t so much as glance at the file he held. “She’s  _ my  _ age.”

“And?”

“I’m fourteen years younger than you.”

Mustang waved a hand dismissively through the air. “I would be bothered by that if you weren’t currently  _ twenty-seven.  _ Honestly, once you get to around twenty-five, it’s all irrelevant. The file?”

“You’re gross,” Ed informed him, crossing the office to the desk, taking the mission documents. 

Or, well, he reached for them, but found himself meeting resistance, as Mustang did not immediately let go.

“Why does it bother you?” Mustang asked, eyeing Ed with something darkly interested in his face.

Ed yanked the folder free, and turned to leave without a word.

“Where’s your ring, Fullmetal?”

Ed paused in mid-step, and Theo’s stomach churned.

He  _ did  _ remember this. Those words echoed in his ears every time he saw the glint of gold against his skin, every time he swallowed down the bile in his throat and ripped it off his hand to stifle the guilt. 

“I’m keeping it safe,” Ed answered, voice tense and almost hollow. He did not turn around. “Where’s Riza?”

“Safe,” Mustang returned. “As I’m hoping you’ll be. Good luck with the job, Edward.”

Ed still didn’t turn, but hunched over a bit, stalking out of the room in silence. 

When the memory around Theo turned fuzzy and gray, slipping away, it was a relief. 

The white room that it faded into, however, was not.

“Are you getting something from this?” He demanded, to the seemingly empty white void. “I know I’m an asshole, okay, I don’t need a reminder every night, and I  _ definitely  _ don’t need a conversation about it.” 

“What did you lose?”

Theo’s eyes dropped closed, an irate breath escaping him. When he opened them again, Truth was stood before him, eerie grin wide as ever on his featureless face. 

“Is this a riddle?” he asked. “Do I get a prize if I get the right answer? Die if I get the wrong one? Or do I just get to sit here and stare at you until you finally give up and let me wake up again?”

“So you don’t know,” Truth said. “I’ve made it so clear, though, Edward.”

“Theo,” he corrected. “There can’t be two Eds, it’s confusing. I’ve got to be someone else.”

“Oh, there you go,” Truth said, nonsensically. “Getting so close. Mustang saw it, Hawkeye saw it, your wife saw it, but you’re only just now catching on.”

Theo didn’t have time to respond before Truth was lifting a hand, giving him a jaunty little wave, and then vanishing, leaving Theo standing in frustration as the white room faded around him.

If this kept up, he thought, as the dream left him, he was just going to have to quit sleeping. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now, I'm gonna defend something for a sec....jokes aside, Truth isn't necessarily trying to ship RoyEd here. That's just the means through which he's trying to show something else that he thinks is important.  
> back to jokes, roy learned today that whenever he gets theo out on a date, he better prepare to shell out, cause that boy HUNGY


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Do I want to know what all this is?”
> 
> “No,” Theo said, immediately following it with, “But I’m going to tell you anyway.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo's theme for this chapter is "i'll sleep when i'm dead" by set it off

Because Theo telling Mustang “God hates me” was neither a joke nor an exaggeration, the memory-dream and the visit to the white room ended with him blinking up at the ceiling of a dark room, not even the faintest hint of sunlight at the window.

A check of the time revealed that it was barely three in the morning - too early to be a reasonable time to wake up, but too late for him to get any decent sleep in before he needed to get up for real.

With a hefty sigh, Theo gave up on sleep, pulling himself out of bed and seeking out one of his father’s journals to try and get some research done with this sudden extra time. 

He’d hardly even managed to find the page he’d left off on decoding last when his mind wandered back to Truth’s cryptic goading again. 

What did Truth think he’d lost that was so important? Something relevant to Mustang, apparently, given the dreams. Something that he’d claimed everyone but Theo himself had been able to catch.

_ There you go,  _ he’d said, after Theo said there could not be two Edward Elrics. What exactly had he said, again? Something like, ‘I have to be someone else.’

Was Truth trying to say he’d lost some fundamental piece of his identity? That seemed rather trivial for a being that fancied itself the driving force of the universe, especially given how insistent it was that Theo was not actually important in the grand scheme of things at all. 

Truth’s riddle was frustrating to dwell on, but the words of the journal bled together and ran off the pages as he tried to read them, so his primary distraction was a bust.

_ Something else,  _ he thought to himself, setting the journal aside and hoisting himself out of bed.

When Pinako entered the kitchen a few hours later, she found Theo at the table, notes scattered across its surface as he switched between drafts of arrays. 

“Do I want to know what all this is?”

“No,” Theo said, immediately following it with, “But I’m going to tell you anyway.”

“Typical,” Pinako muttered, and headed for the fridge, deciding she could at least make breakfast while he talked.

“I modified the seeking array,” Theo said. “This one here-...” he tapped a drawing of an array to his left, “-is a  _ monitoring _ array, set to watch over a set area. I’ll put it on the door, or somewhere like that, and if something gets within a couple feet of it, it’ll go off.”

“And do what?” Pinako asked, staring in dismay at the assortment of random food items that made up Theo’s idea of ‘groceries.’ “Kill it?”

“No! No, nothing like that,” he said. “I have two different drafts for that, actually….One of them would set of an alchemic trap, caging the person in or something like that, but it would have to be specifically set up so that I didn’t accidentally lock a friendly neighbor up in a wood cage for the evening, and that sounds like a pain. The  _ other  _ option, though, was to have it set off a  _ distance  _ array, and alert me, wherever I am.  _ That  _ option would mean I’d need to figure out how to connect two  _ physical _ arrays, instead of using an internal one to cheat like I have been,  _ and  _ I would need a better idea of my distance limit than ‘wherever I can find,’ so that I know how far away I can safely be.”

Pinako turned to look at him, watching him prop his elbows up on the table, hands combing through his over-long golden hair in clear frustration. 

“This is a lot easier now than it used to be,” Theo said. “But it’s still not exactly  _ easy,  _ and every time I get one array working I find two more that I need to come up with. Literally, in this case.” 

“Sounds like you’re overcomplicating things,” Pinako said, rather judgmentally, inspecting a package of sausages that she was not entirely certain could be trusted, even if it  _ was _ brand new and unopened. “Why is this a problem you have to solve with  _ alchemy? _ Alarm systems exist already, Theo. Might not make anything flashy, but they definitely work.”

Theo blinked, then straightened. “Electronics,” he breathed out, sounding awed. “Granny, you’re a genius.”

“Don’t call me that,” Pinako snapped at him. “I’m not so old as to be a grandmother to every young person I’ve ever patched up!” She turned, hoisting a carton of eggs into the air (missing, in her motions, Theo’s pained look), and demanded, “Where is your  _ milk?”  _

“Don’t have any,” Theo said, blinking at her innocently. 

“You don’t drink it either, do you?” Pinako asked, squinting at him. “What about Al?”

“He was outvoted.”

“He’s  _ ten,”  _ Pinako reminded him. “Children’s growth comes before diet preferences.”

Theo had the decency to look a bit abashed at that. “I grew fine without it,” he protested, weakly. “And that was with two automail limbs and my soul supporting an extra body.”

Pinako shot him a look, clearly communicating the sentiment of  _ I’m not going to ask  _ without needing say a word. 

“Honestly, though,” Theo said. “Jokes aside, no one ever mentioned milk, so I didn’t bother even considering it. If someone  _ wants  _ it, we’ll get it, but otherwise, I’m perfectly happy not having it around.”

“And I suppose that logic also applies to vegetables?” Pinako asked, gesturing back to the fridge. “Fresh meats? Any of the foods that two young growing boys and one active young man  _ should  _ be eating?”

Theo looked suddenly sheepish. “I, ah...my brother and my wife were in charge of making sure I stayed alive most of the time. I have no idea what I’m doing. I mainly went for stuff those two could manage on their own, for when I’m not here, you know?”

Pinako considered this. From that angle, the grocery situation didn’t seem  _ quite  _ as bad - the foods weren’t exactly the peak of healthy or ideal nutrition, but they weren’t straight junk food, either. Processed meats would last longer than fresh ones, and the limited fruits could be eaten as-is, rather than needing any kind of preparation, like most vegetables. In her search of the cabinets she’d found cereals and energy bars, both of which made good quick snacks for three easily distracted alchemists who would no doubt be reluctant to leave their research (or whatever they were up to - she wasn’t about to ask) to sit for a proper meal. 

“You’ve got a while before that man is sending you out on missions, yeah?” Pinako said, brandishing a spoon at him. “I’m teaching you how to cook before I go home. The boys, too. They’re children, they need to eat properly, and  _ so do you.  _ From what I’ve seen of you, you’re muscle on bone - bulk means nothing if you’re starving under it, Theo.”

“I’m not-...” Theo started, but cut off at her glare. “Ah...yes, ma’am. I do know how to cook, though-... Er, well. In  _ theory. _ I know how it’s supposed to work, and the process, and the  _ chemistry- _ ...”

“Son,” Pinako interrupted, voice tired. “Get over here and help me make some eggs, before I have to hurt you.”

Theo scrambled to her side quickly - his memory of Pinako’s wrench-wielding strength was distant and vague, but after years of Winry’s, he wasn’t keen to go re-learning it. 

  
  
  
  


“Colonel.”

Roy looked up from where he’d been laying out his things for the day on his desk, blinking up at Riza, who was watching him with an expression he knew from experience meant she was about to say something she considered to be overstepping. 

“What is it?” he asked - he never minded Riza’s opinions, insubordinate or otherwise. 

“I would... _ prefer  _ if we kept paperwork within our established routine,” she said, slowly. “We had a streamlined and efficient system-...”

“You cock your gun when the stacks get too high, and the men panic,” Roy cut in smoothly. “I’m aware.”

“Yes, well,” she looked as though she’d bitten down on something sour. “The paperwork may not be done  _ enthusiastically,  _ but it is done  _ accurately  _ and-...”

“Is this-...”

“Sir, if you’d let me finish.”

Roy’s mouth snapped back shut, and he sat back, amused, gesturing for her to complete her thought. 

“It’s Major Hohenheim’s paperwork that’s concerning me,” Riza admitted, a bit of professionalism dropping from her tone as she crossed the room, setting the papers in her arms down in front of him. Roy recognized the scribbled notes in the margins as the ‘corrections’ and various commentary that had been offered by Theo in his work the day before. 

“Ah, right,” Roy said, unable to help a laugh.

“Sir, I have had to rewrite each and every one of these forms,” she said, unimpressed. “Which means you get to sign them all  _ again.”  _

Roy stopped laughing with a grimace. Doing all that paperwork  _ twice  _ was decidedly less funny. 

“Your employees are your own to command,” Riza continued, “but in order to be able to pass these along the appropriate channels, a level of restraint needs to be shown.”

“His comments aren’t that bad,” Roy countered, albeit weakly. “Just…”

Riza flipped through the pages for a moment, then turned the stack around, presenting Roy with a rather impressive doodle of what, from the eyepatch, appeared to be an unflattering doodle of Fuhrer Bradley sticking his sword through the ‘requests’ section of a requisition form. 

“...Point taken.”

“Reign him in,” Riza said, all pretense abandoned, “or let him do something else. If they’re like this today, I’m not redoing them.”

There was a bit of noise outside of Roy’s office, the distant sounds of a conversation being muffled by his door. 

“That’ll be him,” he sighed. “Alright, alright. I didn’t expect him to be a paperwork type, anyway, to be honest.”

“Reign him in,” Riza repeated, before giving a nice formal salute and turning to leave. She passed Theo on his way in, and though she didn’t acknowledge him, Roy could practically  _ feel  _ the ice radiating off her.

“...She doesn’t like me,” Theo said, once in the office, staring at the open door in apparent surprise - as though the concept of Riza, strictly professional and fiercely defensive, not liking  _ him,  _ insubordinate and quick to insult, was baffling to him. 

“She’s not fond of your style of paperwork,” Roy replied.

Theo seemed comforted by this, nodding understandingly, and closed the door behind himself. “I’m not used to writing things that someone else is going to read. Alchemy journals, research notes-...”

“You never write letters?” Roy asked, curiosity winning out over the sense to move the conversation along. 

“Oh, well, yeah,” Theo said, scratching at the side of his nose as he appeared to think this over. “But only to my brother and y-...uh. The bastard I used to work for, that I mentioned to you.”

“The one I remind you of.”

Theo waved a hand dismissively. “Not that much, actually,” he said- sounding slightly put out about it. “He never bothered turning the ‘charming bastard’ routine on  _ me,  _ like you do, for one-...”

“You think I’m charming?”

Roy watched as Theo froze, visibly rethinking the last few words that had passed his mouth, and then flushed, sputtering indignantly. 

“That’s not- I mean that you  _ think  _ you’re being charming, asshole. You’re really just being  _ gross.”  _

Roy gave him an affronted look, but paused before retaliating, because something odd happened on Theo’s face.

The second the last word had left his mouth, Theo had halted, the flush draining as he blanched instead, staring blankly ahead in open horror.

“....Theo?”

“Sorry!” Theo shook his head, returning to a semblance of normalcy - though Roy noticed he was looking anywhere  _ but  _ at him. “I just- I’ve, uh, already had this argument. One like it, anyway, with the other-...It’s dumb.” Before Roy could ask after this, though, Theo looked back at him - still slightly pale - and asked, “What am I doing today, then? More paper bullshit?”                                                                                              

“No,” Roy said, after a moment’s hesitation. “No, you’ve been banned, until you can restrain your urges to doodle.”

“So, forever.”

“That’s what I figured,” Roy sighed. “So, you get something much worse.”

Theo eyed him apprehensively, and Roy grinned brightly in response, lifting a stack of sealed envelopes and string-bound stacks of paper. 

“Let’s put your alchemist title to the test, shall we?”

Theo narrowed his eyes at the stack, then at Roy, then back again.

As he crossed the room to take the stack, Roy heard him mutter something that sounded like  _ “definitely the same.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> riza: why the fuck are you letting this guy do paperwork? hes awful at it  
> roy: yeah i know but you dont have all the facts  
> riza: what facts  
> roy: i love him


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He hadn’t really thought about it until he’d said it, but Mustang’s behavior did make more sense now, if he framed it that way - Mustang was trying to make Theo like him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you know that meme of the two spidermans pointing accusingly at each other? thats theo and other characters trying to point out each others shady behavior this chapter

If there was to be a moment where Theo realized something that made everything else he’d been confused on a little clearer, made some fundamental pieces click into place and some pressing questions be suddenly answered, he would have imagined it would be triggered by something a little more impressive than the word ‘gross.’

_ Gross,  _ though, was how Theo had once described Mustang’s behavior toward the women who came and went from his life, and now it was the same word he’d reached for when trying to excuse his misspeaking.

He hadn’t really thought about it until he’d said it, but Mustang’s behavior did make more sense now, if he framed it that way - Mustang was trying to make Theo like him.

Theo’s childhood understanding of Mustang had been an opinion formed of a man to whom he owed everything, and who held that leverage openly in each of their interactions.

_ Now,  _ though, Theo hadn’t really made himself look  _ that  _ desperate. Mustang wasn’t saving  _ his  _ life,  _ his  _ freedom, but the two children Mustang only knew as spontaneous charges Theo had taken on. 

Theo was in the same category as the higher-ranked officers of the military, as informants he had scattered throughout the city, as - embarrassing as it was to think - the women he dated. 

He had something Mustang wanted, and so Mustang wanted Theo to like him. 

That’s why his behavior was different. That’s why he had been dismissive of his debts and accommodating to his problems. 

Mustang was trying to win him over.

This was not necessarily a bad thing, honestly, but stalking through the halls of offices in search of key personnel to pass off the man’s  _ mail  _ made it seem very much like an offensive form of emotional manipulation.

This annoyance was much easier to deal with than, for instance, the grief of having Pinako rebuff his familiar treatment of her, or the shame of realizing he didn’t actually know how to do  _ anything  _ related to children, or the pain of realizing Hawkeye didn’t like him this time around. 

All these things needed to be fixed at some point, but Theo still couldn’t even figure out what his stupid dreams meant, so he wasn’t sure he had time to place them as priorities. 

His eyes turned down toward the papers he held, and his steps faltered in the hall as his eyes landed on the heading of the first page of one of the bound stacks of papers. 

_ CASE FILE: ‘SLICER’ _

Slicer. The Slicer Brothers, because it was still 1910, and they wouldn’t be executed and bound to armor for two more years. They hadn’t even been caught yet.

Moving to stand against a wall, Theo awkwardly shuffled his burdens to get the case file at the top of the stack, getting a better look at it. 

He didn’t undo the string, but nudged it a bit, so that it was loose enough to allow him to peek under the corners of the pages to the sheet beneath. He caught fragments of information, from victim portraits to report dates, but nothing more substantial then the edges of a form or a guess at a report’s contents. 

He readjusted the stack to sit more securely on one arm, so that he could reach up, toying with the string.

Surely, if he untied it, he could tie it back, or else transmute it so that no one would know-...

“Hallways are generally not the best place to review paperwork, in my experience.”

Theo’s head snapped up, eyes fixing on the man coming down the hallway now, approaching him with a wide smile but a suspicious gaze.

“Fuh-...Um. General Grumman,” Theo greeted, catching himself just short of the slip of his (potential?) future rank. As an afterthought, he shifted the stack again, and gave him a sort of sloppy imitation of a salute.

This seemed to amuse the man further, as he looked almost ready to laugh. “ _ Lieutenant _ General,” he corrected. “I’m afraid you have me at a disadvantage...you seem familiar with me, but I don’t recognize you.”

“I’m Theo,” he introduced immediately, before grimacing. “Um, the Courier Alchemist?”

Gumman looked down to the papers in Theo’s hands. “...Indeed,” he said jovily, making Theo’s hatred of both the name and his current assignment grow tenfold. “I suspected, but it’s always best to  _ ask,  _ you know. Never tell someone’s lie for them if they are up to something suspicious, after all.” He reached out, taking the file from the top of Theo’s stack before he could do anything about it. “Ah, yes, I asked for these...You work under Colonel Mustang, now, I see, Major Hohenheim.”

“Theo,” he corrected reflexively. At Grumman’s raised eyebrow, he offered, “I’m….not a fan of ‘Hohenheim.’”

“‘Courier,’ then?”

Theo twitched. “Yeah, that’s worse.”

Grumman laughed. “An unfortunate situation you’ve found yourself in, to hate to be addressed by half your names. Perhaps such difficulty referring to you is what keeps the Colonel from passing on anything substantial about you. No history whatsoever - I can’t even get him to tell me your specialty. I imagine you bringing me my his reports is a coincidence rather than a demonstration?”

“I’m not a courier,” Theo confirmed, slightly irritably. “I developed a distance alchemy array, and everyone seemed to decide that the obvious use for that was shipping people their mail, and not...I don’t know, drawing up water from your house while you’re crossing the desert. Useful stuff.”

“Mail can be remarkably useful itself,” Grumman said. Then, to Theo’s horror, he lifted the paperwork up a bit and said, “As I suppose you well know, given you were trying to get into it.”

“I-...!” Theo faltered, fumbled, then quickly attempted to recover. “I just- I know that case. I wanted to see how far it’s gone.”

“Well, you won’t find anything interesting in here,” Grumman said, looking down at the paper. “Nothing you couldn’t read in the paper, honestly. We’re having a bit of trouble tracking him down...Remarkably efficient killers are becoming worryingly standard, these days, Major.”

“I could help,” Theo offered, before even thinking about it. “I’d be better at that then…” He gestured to the papers they each held.

Grumman gave him a highly amused smile. “I believe that would be up to your commanding officer,” he said. “However, I suppose I would first need to extend an invitation to join the investigation to Colonel Mustang, wouldn’t I?” He reached out, taking the papers that Theo still held, trading them off for the case file, and then turning to leave.

“Sir,” Theo called out, “You don’t need this one?” He held up the case file.

“I’ve read it a thousand times,” Grumman called back. “I daresay you’ll find it more interesting. Good day, Major Hohenheim.”

Theo blinked after him, and it wasn’t until the man had vanished around a corner that he managed to reply, “...Bye.”

  
  
  


“What’s that?” 

Edward startled, shoving the journal under his bed covers quickly, only to relax when looking up revealed he’d been caught by  _ Winry,  _ not Granny. 

To his side, Alphonse - who hadn’t so much as flinched - grinned broadly at their friend. “One of our dad’s journals!”

“One of  _ Theo’s _ journals,” Ed corrected tersely. “We  _ think  _ he got it from our dad.” 

“It’s definitely dad’s,” Al insisted. “Theo doesn’t have any of his own stuff, remember? And the code he uses looks the same.”

“Maybe he  _ learned- _ ...”

Al rolled his eyes, ignoring his brother in favor of addressing Winry. “Theo was working on an array this morning, but he cleaned everything up real fast when he saw us looking at it. We were looking to see if there’s anything like it in here, so we can see what it does.”

“If he cleaned it up, he probably doesn’t want you looking at it,” Winry pointed out. “Won’t he get mad?” 

Ed shrugged. “Never seen him mad. He gets kind of pissy-...”

“That’s a bad word.”

“-About that military guy,” Ed continued, acting as though Winry hadn’t spoken, “but most of the time he’s either super focused on doing alchemy stuff or just kind of...sitting there.”

“Granny says he has no idea what he’s doing,” Winry confided in them. “She said that he’s gonna have a real hard time taking care of you two, ‘cause he’s so bad at taking care of himself, already.”

“Theo’s not  _ bad _ at  _ anything,”  _ Ed defended immediately. “We don’t need him to be our dad or anything! We’re old enough to take care of ourselves!”

“I didn’t say he had to be your  _ dad,”  _ Winry said. “And  _ I’m _ not saying anything! I’m just telling you what Granny says.” 

“Theo’s really cool,” Al offered. “He’s taught us loads of alchemy stuff...Not major stuff, but he makes all sorts of super cool arrays, and he told us that we can do alchemy now without circles, too, and-...”

“You boys and your  _ alchemy,”  _ Winry sighed heavily. “That’s all you care about. Alchemy this, alchemy that…”

“You’re the same way with automail,” Ed countered.

“No I’m not!” Winry protested. “I like other stuff, too! I still wanna play and hang out with you guys and read books and stuff. You guys are  _ obsessed.” _

“Alchemy is  _ brilliant,  _ though,” Ed said. “Once you get automail, you’ve got it, but alchemy is infinite. Every time you learn something, there’s something else you need to figure out. It-...”

“It almost  _ killed  _ you!” 

Silence fell between the children. 

“Automail doesn’t kill people,” Winry said, quiet and hesitant. “It hurts a lot, but it doesn’t  _ kill  _ people, Ed. Alchemy  _ does. _ It-...It killed Theo’s  _ family,  _ didn’t it?”

Ed and Al exchanged looks. 

“Alchemy is dangerous,” Winry said. “And...and, so is Theo, I think.”

“He’s-..!”

“He seems like a good person!” Winry rushed to add. “But-...but, you need to be careful, okay? Both of you. He says alchemy has done all these terrible things to him, and...and he keeps using it anyway. That’s scary, Ed.”

“You just don’t like him because he joined the military,” Ed said stubbornly, pulling the journal back out. “There’s nothing wrong with Theo.”

“You’re  _ so- _ ...ugh.” Winry looked to Al imploringly. 

“We’ll be careful,” Al promised her, gently. “But Ed’s right, too...I don’t think there’s anything wrong with Theo. I think he is working on something...he almost told us the other day, after that Colonel left, and I’m not gonna think anything bad about him until I know what it was.”

“Exactly,” Ed chimed in, as though these had also been his thoughts, and he hadn’t just been stubbornly denying Theo’s potential sketchiness out of blind pigheaded loyalty. “So shut up, Winry.”

“You’re so _ mean.” _

  
  
  


“So…” Havoc said, leaning back so that his front chair legs rose off the floor, leaving his balance dependent on the way his knees were wedged up under the desk. “New guy.”

“What about him?” Breda asked.

“Just, y’know. Opinions. What’s everybody think of him?”

“I know Hawkeye hates him,” Breda offered immediately.

“She doesn’t  _ hate  _ him,” Fuery sighed. “She just…”

“He’s banned from paperwork,” Falman informed them. “She told me earlier.”

“Shit, how’d he manage that?” Havoc asked. “Could we do that?”

“He probably only didn’t get shot because he’s new,” Breda said. “I think we’re safer just filing it out.”

“Yeah, ‘new,’” Havoc echoed. “Meaning he’s Mustang’s new toy. What’s he thinking of doing with this guy, anyway? Mustang doesn’t have a lot of field agents reporting to him. I can’t see why he would need an alchemist on his team…’specially one with  _ kids.”  _

“Kids?”

Havoc looked to Fuery. “Did you miss that part? He’s got two little brothers with him.”

“Oh, I thought you meant he  _ had  _ kids,” Fuery said. “I just thought- well, it didn’t really make sense to me, given-...um…”

“Because he gives Mustang the same look Havoc’s dates usually do?” 

“Hey,” Havoc protested, at the same time Fuery spluttered and tried to deny it, making Breda laugh. 

“The brothers are ten and eleven years old,” Falman interrupted, speaking to Fuery. “They’re not  _ his  _ children, but they are still his dependants.” 

“Wait, wait, why do  _ you  _ know that?” Havoc asked, dropping his chair back to the floor as he turned to stare at the other officer incredulously. “Did Mustang actually tell you something about him?”

“I had to arrange paperwork for him,” Falman told them. “He was apparently missing most key documentation.” There was a moment’s pause, before Falman seemed to crack under the strain of his professionalism, and admitted, “And, judging by how pleased with himself he seemed upon giving me the man’s birthday this morning, obtaining the information that was meant to be  _ on  _ those forms is as difficult as finding the original lost records.”

“So he’s sketchy,” Havoc summarized. 

“I trust Colonel Mustang’s judgement,” Falman said diplomatically. “If he says Major Hohenheim is an asset, than he is. Simple as that.”

They sat in silence for a moment. 

“...He’s stupid pretty, though, right?” Havoc asked the room. “I’m not the only one seeing that?” 

“Straight gorgeous,” Breda confirmed. “No man in East City stands a chance while he’s around, I guarantee.” 

They were saved any further opinions on this by the sound of a clearing throat and then the tell-tale click of a cocked pistol. 

Hawkeye had noticed the lack of paperwork noises, then. They hurried to remedy this, shelving their conversation of Theo for a later time.

There was really nothing more to say, anyway.

Not yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> havoc: this guy is weird  
> breda: yeah i feel that  
> havoc:  
> nobody:  
> literally no one:  
> absolutely not a single person:  
> havoc: he'skindahotthoisthatweird?


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even as he took it, though, he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know why he held onto it when it was given to him, or why he took care to keep it with him, or why he chose to hide it from Mustang that he’d taken it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takin a break from my gay cowboy content to update theo's plight  
> enjoy the Struggle™

Theo spent most of the day running around the building, being introduced to various personnel and attempting to correct them on his name in a way that was neither offensive nor overly friendly. 

It was tiring, and when the day was over, he was glad to be done with it. 

Though he knew it was probably a bad idea, he kept the file to himself. He was able to fold it in on itself twice before the thickness refused to yield, allowing him to cram the whole thing as a fat square into one of the absurdly deep pockets of his military uniform trousers, and thus smuggle it out of the building and back to his apartment.

Even as he took it, though, he wasn’t sure why. He didn’t know why he held onto it when it was given to him, or why he took care to keep it with him, or why he chose to hide it from Mustang that he’d taken it. 

There was a hunger in him, though, one he hadn’t felt in a long time. It was the desperation of hunting down the homunculi all over again, if a bit watered down - which didn’t make  _ sense,  _ because these were just a couple killers that he knew full well would be caught soon.

_ Who dies until then, though?  _

He couldn’t help but think it. Couldn’t help but feel frustrated that the body count was nowhere near done climbing, wasn’t even really getting  _ started _ . So much blood would run before he could even get to a point to retaliate. 

_ How many lives,  _ Theo thought, as he unfolded the crushed up folder again at home, spreading the papers out across the table.  _ How much did Truth take from me alone?  _

Equivalent exchange was murky here - how much was the cost of a second try? Everything he’d known was gone, surely that afforded him something more than just a front row seat to the destruction of his life. Surely all that loss paid for  _ something,  _ let him save just a little-...

...Or maybe it didn’t. Maybe the life Theo had bought with his own had been his still - perhaps his adult life was given to give his younger self something better, something less troubled, and the rest of the world would have to go forward unaffected. He’d bought his own peace, not theirs. 

_ Fuck that. _

His eyes locked on the files of each known victim of the Slicer Brothers, burning their faces into his mind. 

Fuck Truth, fuck equations, fuck equivalence. How many times now had he been reminded that there was no price for human life? Nothing equaled the value of a human soul except another. 

_ Another soul. _

Theo froze, the files suddenly seeming miles away.

A soul. Not knowledge, not peace -  _ souls,  _ whatever mysterious properties defined them. 

What was the Gate? A piece of him, clearly, but a piece of Truth as well. It was the link that bonded them together, allowed exchange between them. It opened within the core of any who had the strength and audacity to seek it out, and through it ran the secrets of the universe.

But what  _ was  _ it? In terms of the equations he’d broken down, the study of values and prices, what defined the Gate? 

Not knowledge - Theo had not forgotten a single thing without it. Neither was it part of his body, which had been more whole than ever for its absence. Not his mind, just a single ability. 

More than an ability, though, as well. If he’d offered up his knowledge of math or science, his ability to bullshit through a game of chess or tinker with small machines, Truth would have laughed in his face.

Alchemy transcended ability. It was a part of the alchemist - the link between the universe as a whole and the individual soul.

A cold feeling washed over him, and a second later, he was looking up into Truth’s grin again.

“You figured it out.”

Theo stared at Truth. Part of him wanted to make a smart comment about how often Truth wanted to see him these days, and the increasing ease of being dragged back to this place, but there was something more pressing weighing on him.

“You took a part of me,” Theo said. “The Gate was part of my soul.” 

“Yes, and no,” Truth said. “A human soul craves the presence of others...but those who insist on being more than mere humans connect themselves instead to the universe itself. To knowledge. To life. To Truth.”

“And I gave it away,” Theo said, realization turning his stomach. “I didn’t want it. I wanted Alphonse.”

“And I gave him to you,” Truth said. “Gladly. Because I knew it wouldn’t be the last time we spoke.”

“Because I’d need more.” Theo shook his head, horrified and disgusted - both with himself most of all. “I wouldn’t ever be satisfied. No matter how many people loved me, no matter how good my life was-…”

“Give up alchemy for want of a brother,” Truth said. “Give up a brother for a family. Give up the family for the brother. Back and forth, back and forth, and it’s never enough. More, more, more - give up peace for work, give up growth for impact, give up, give up, give up. Addicted to sacrifice.”

“I’m Tantalus, starving under a tree,” Theo realized. “But each time I pick a fruit it rots in my hand.” 

“You were,” Truth corrects. “But your sacrificing wasn’t done. It still isn’t.” 

Theo looked down at his hands, a numb feeling spreading through him. 

He’d proposed to Winry because he’d wanted to keep her in his life as long as he could, but he didn’t spend any time with her. He’d hoarded her love selfishly and given next to nothing in return. In the same way, he’d never let Al grow or change, tailing along behind him and dragging him away in turn, nurturing their codependence. He’d been proud to be a father but never acted like one. He’d insisted he didn’t want fame and yet made no effort to hide from it. 

He’d taken his ring off outside Mustang’s office every single time and told himself it was fine, and he’d believed himself because it never meant that much to him anyway. 

It had been a long time since Theo felt such a strong hatred, and it seemed fitting it was toward himself.

“Your soul’s been through a lot,” Truth said, somewhere so close to sympathetic that it seemed all the more mocking. “But you’ve pieced it back together, and now you’ve got a shot at making sure your mistakes aren’t repeated.” 

“So that’s it, then?” Theo asked, looking up again. “You’ve given me enough time to fix him? Ed, I mean? Make it so he doesn’t-...”

“Edward and Alphonse Elric are whole in soul and body,” Truth said. “...Mostly. You’ve already stopped them going down your path.”

“And that’s what I bought,” Theo said. “My life, it bought their souls? The pieces you would have taken?”

Truth tipped its white head back in a laugh, the sole feature of his grin wide as ever. “You’re so  stupid,” it laughed, before looking back to Theo. “Stop bargaining,  _ Theophrastus.  _ What you’re after isn’t righteous. You want to be whole again. It’s all you’ve ever wanted. It’s what you ask for every time I see you.”

“Then-...”

“The pieces you broke off still exist,” Truth said. “Find them - and  _ then,  _ you may find me.”

The apartment returned in the blink of an eye. 

Staring down at the papers, Theo had a strong urge to be sick.

  
  
  


Pinako watched Theo closely as he carefully followed her instructions for preparing the chicken breasts she intended to cook for dinner, applying seasoning in precisely measured amounts, defaulting to science where this particular knowledge failed him.

He’d been quiet all afternoon. He’d come home with papers, sorted through them for a few minutes, and then packed them back into a file and disappeared to stash it away somewhere. Since then, he’d been almost entirely silent, obeying each of her instructions without protest and to the letter. 

As much as she hated prompting him to tell her even more of his ever growing confusing life story, she had to say  _ something. _

“Your mother must have been very calm.”

Theo straightened, turning wide eyes on Pinako, the jerk of movement sending a small amount of seasoning sloshing out of his measuring spoon and dusting the entire counter. 

“There we go,” Pinako said, reaching out to take the spoon from him, using it to gesture at the chicken that had been hit by the scattered spices. “That’s more like it.”

“What was that?” Theo asked, entirely ignoring their lesson. “About my mother?” 

“She must have been calm,” Pinako said, pinching some of the seasoning between her fingers and scattering it over the chicken, past the point of waiting on Theo to figure it out. “You’re much more agreeable than the boys tend to be. Hohenheim’s stubbornness combined with Trisha’s emotional range to create a couple of menaces, but you mostly listen.” 

Theo snorted. “I’m just older,” he said. “And you’re-...Well. I don’t listen worth a shit to most people. Stuff like this, sure. I don’t know anything about this. But anything else?” He shook his head. “I’m probably worse, actually.”

“Suppose I just haven’t seen much of you,” she said. “All I know is that you’ve been through hell, and it’s given you some mighty fine nerves.” After a moment of thought, she added, “And that you love those two boys, but you haven’t got a clue how to talk to them.” 

“I don’t think you need to be around me very long to catch that one,” Theo said. “It’s pretty obvious I have no idea what I’m doing.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Pinako said. “You’re keeping them safe, at the very least. You make it clear that’s your biggest priority. I just get the sense you’ve got about as much emotional range as your father - you’ve got stubborn, angry, and  _ them _ , and nothing in between.”

“... _ Them?”  _

“People you care about,” Pinako elaborated. “Hohenheim around Trisha was a whole different person. His behavior toward her barely changed with his mood, he was so gone on her.  _ You,  _ on the other hand - under all your paranoia and anger, you’ve got your love for those two boys, the loss you feel for your family, and whatever the hell is up your ass about that military guy.” 

_ “Mustang?”  _ Theo asked, incredulous. “What’s- You’ve  _ met _ him. He’s an asshole. It’s nothing special, I just don’t like him.” 

Pinako eyed him, heavily skeptical. 

“Okay, that’s not-...” Theo tried. “I don’t-...He’s just a pain in the ass. A  _ helpful _ pain in the ass, but still.” 

“Uh-huh,” Pinako said. Looking down at their seasoned chickens, she announced casually, “I think these are ready to cook.”

Theo helped her start putting them into a pan. “He’s my best bet to keep Ed and Al safe, though.”

“I’m sure. Turn the stove on- little lower- good.”

“He’s trustworthy, even if he is an asshole,” Theo continued. “And I need all the people I can get if I want to-...”

“I am not arguing with you,” Pinako pointed out. “I don’t give a damn one way or the other. Don’t invite him to any more dinners unless you’re the one cooking. Other than that, do whatever you  want.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Pinako raised her eyes skyward, as though praying for strength. After a long pause, she nudged him out of the way, taking over cooking the chicken. 

“Get out of here,” she said. “I swear, you’re as bad as your father. All that science and math and you never learned a thing about people.” 

Theo shook his head, not bothering to search for sense in that, and went to go retrieve his ‘younger brothers,’ all while trying hard not to think that the best person to tell him what the hell Pinako was on about would have been his own version of Winry. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pinako: dont make me fund your dates   
> theo: my wot


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I don't know anything about that animal research stuff he does, except that it's vile seeing what it does to some of those poor creatures, and your government is sick if it wants to fund it."
> 
> "Sick, and getting sicker," Theo replied. "Them, and your husband, too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Late nights across Amestris! shoutout to everyone who patiently waited for this chapter while i went on a gay cowboy kick lmao

There was an angel on the porch. 

Erin Tucker could think of no other way to properly sum up the scene in front of her: a stranger in the late evening, all shades of gold smothered under a plain brown coat. 

"Mrs. Tucker?"

Erin blinked. "I-...Yes. Who are-...?"

"I'm Theo," the man said. "Is your husband here?"

Her lips pressed into a thin line, her face showing her irritation of its own accord. "No," she said, flatly. "Did you need him for something?" She finally caught sight of the blue uniform hidden beneath his coat. "Are you a State Alchemist? Did someone finally answer him?"

"I'm military, but I'm not here for him, no." The man looked her in the eye with something heavy in his gaze, and told her, "I wanted to speak to  _ you." _

"Me?" Erin echoed. "About what? I don't know anything about that animal research stuff he does, except that it's  _ vile  _ seeing what it does to some of those poor creatures, and your government is sick if it wants to fund it."

"Sick, and getting sicker," Theo replied. "Them, and your husband, too."

Erin narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you mean?”

“He’s obsessed with alchemy,” Theo said. “The animals don’t matter to him at all, and that’s a slippery slope. The more he learns, the more he’ll want to learn, and the more he’ll be willing to do.” 

“I don’t follow.”

The man reached out, holding out a folded piece of paper. Hesitantly, Erin plucked it free between her fingers, unfolding it to reveal a drawing.

She knew next to nothing about alchemy, Shou’s notes having always been incomprehensible to her, but she didn’t have to understand the individual symbols and lines to know that she’d been given a very complicated alchemy circle. 

“Look at it, very closely,” Theo told her, suddenly speaking in a much lower voice. “Do you know what it is? Have you seen it before?”

“I don’t know,” Erin said, frowning down at the paper. “I don’t know enough about alchemy to tell the difference.”

“Learn this one,” Theo said. “And look for it. And - I know I’m a stranger, you have no reason to trust me, but…If you see this array anywhere, run. Take your daughter and go, and don’t look back.” 

Erin’s head snapped up, wide eyes on the soldier’s face. “What do you know about my daughter?” 

The man’s lips pressed into a thin line, and it was a moment before he spoke again. “I had a daughter, too,” he said, rather than answer. “And a son, and a wife, and a brother… I had everything.” He reached out, tapping the paper still clutched in Erin’s hands. “I lost them all, for this array.”

Erin lowered her eyes back to the circle. “What…what is this?”

“Human transmutation.”

Erin gaped at him.

“Shou Tucker is going to get tired of taking the long way around,” Theo told her. “Animals won’t cut it. He’ll want something stronger. You know it already. You’re already thinking about leaving. If he catches you, if he  _ knows  _ he’s lost you, he’ll act. What he’s done to them, he’ll do to you...and then, if he gets away with it, he’ll do it to your daughter, too.”

“I’ll kill him first,” Erin spat, before catching herself. “I-...Why do you know all this? How do I know you’re not just some crazy man trying to get between me and my husband?” 

“I know Shou Tucker,” Theo said. “He thought we were the same. That I was like him, willing to pay any cost to get what I want. And...honestly, I think I might have been. But I’m trying not to be. I’ve lost too much to this.” He reached out, hands catching Erin’s wrists, lifting up her hands to bring the paper closer to her. “If you won’t take it on my word, memorize this. Nothing good can come from it. If you ever see it, you don’t need to trust me to know you’re not safe. If you see it,  _ go.”  _

“But he….he can’t know I’m leaving?” This was insane, but there was something desperate in the man, something that made her trust that, even if he wasn’t right, he at least  _ thought _ he was. “Or he’ll hurt us?” 

“He’ll try,” Theo said. 

“I can’t risk my daughter’s life like that,” Erin said. “Wouldn’t it be safer to just-...?”

“He won’t touch Nina,” Theo said, low and dangerous. “If anything happens to you, I’ll get her away. You have my word on that.”

Erin narrowed her eyes at him. He knew Nina’s name? “How do you know Shou?”

“Memorize the array,” Theo said, avoiding her question again. “When you’ve got it, destroy the paper. Burn it.” 

“You-...”

“Goodnight, Mrs. Tucker.”

She watched the man turn on the spot, disappearing quickly into the night. 

Her eyes returned to the alchemy circle in her hands, scanning over the complex symbols. Some of them she thought she’d seen before, others were entirely foreign. She tried to break them down to something simple, tried to map out some easily recognizable pieces. A hexagon and some triangles, circles and curves near the points, odd shapes with arrows run through them...

This was  _ crazy _ ...but, the man was right. She didn’t have to trust him to know that this would put her daughter’s life in jeopardy, and that was enough to get her out if she saw it.

_ If  _ she saw it.

And somehow, the sinking feeling in her stomach told her she  _ would. _

  
  
  


“Civilians?” 

“Seem to be,” Envy confirmed, in a bored tone, kicking their legs up onto the table before them. “Stinks like chimeras around the place, though. Someone’s up to something in there.”

“Did you get in to look at it?”

Envy shot Wrath an unimpressed look. “What, walk right past Mister Paranoid? I couldn’t even get close enough to listen to them without him getting twitchy. Trying to follow him was enough of a pain in the ass.”

“One human is enough to thwart you?” 

“Only when  _ you  _ tell me not to mess with him,” Envy said. “What am I supposed to do? Politely ask him to step aside? Befriend him? Pass. I’ll watch from a distance, and that’s all you’re getting.”

“You’ll give me what I ask for,” Wrath corrected, close to threatening. “What  _ Father _ asks for.”

Envy waved a hand dismissively. “Which is information! Which I can get  _ at a distance.  _ If you’re so interested, take it to the shadows.” 

“Pride is not getting involved.”

“Aw,” Envy cooed. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were protecting your son, there, Wrath.” 

Wrath scowled at them. “I’m protecting our plans. Continue to act casually, and I’ll be forced to assume your loyalty is as fragile as Greed’s was.”

“Loyalty,” Envy scoffed. “Who needs loyalty? I’m just having fun.”

Wrath turned his back on them, striding over to the window of his office, looking out over late evening Central. 

“He’s seen the Gate,” Wrath murmured to the city lights. “He understands extremely complex alchemy. He was given the full name Father presented the second philosopher. He  _ radiates  _ a power we’ve never seen, and somehow we’ve never noticed him. If you can’t find who he truly is, at least find  _ where he came from.”  _

“What about the brats?”

Wrath looked to Envy, raising a disinterested eyebrow. “What about them?”

“He has two kids with him,” Envy said. “If there was ever a bargaining chip for a guy like that…”

Wrath caught the intention, and almost smiled.

  
  
  
  


Theo was so used to the ghostly memory dreams at this point, finding himself in another when he finally collapsed into bed was actually rather expected. 

What  _ wasn’t  _ expected was the fact that, for once, the memory seemed to have nothing to do with Mustang.

“You’re...what?”

“Honesty, Ed,” Winry said, giving her husband an exasperated look. “How many times am I going to have to say it? Use your big brain for once, and  _ listen.”  _

“I heard you,” the spectre of the past Edward said, voice strained.

Theo remembered the feeling of having the wind knocked out of him, when this happened. He remembered the confusion, the astonishment, the utter disbelief. 

“I just…”

“I think it’ll be a boy,” Winry continued, in a sigh. “Just what I need, to, another one of you Elric boys running around. He’ll probably be wrecking my workshop by age two.”

“A baby,” Ed breathed. “You’re having a  _ baby.”  _

Winry turned, giving him a brilliant smile. “Yeah,” she confirmed. Her eyes were watery, and the joy on her face was immeasurable. 

Theo looked to Ed, to his past self, watching the blank expression warp, confusion at the forefront of a mix of complicated emotions.

Theo remembered thinking  _ that’s not possible,  _ at the time. He remembered marvelling at the idea that someone as broken and damaged as him had managed to do something like this, taken part in the creation of a life, something he’d failed to do in the past despite his best efforts, and managed it without actually meaning to at all. 

He could see that on Ed’s face...and so could Winry.

Winry’s smile faltered, her face becoming slightly strained. “Ed?” she called to him, gently. “What’s wrong?”

Ed continued to stare at her.

“It’s not that scary,” Winry told him. “We’ll be good parents, I know we will.”

“I don’t know how to be a parent,” Ed said. 

“Oh, shut up,” Winry breathed, sounding relieved at him finally responding. “You practically raised Al!”

“ _ He _ raised  _ me _ ,”  Ed corrected. “I just…”

Just got him into trouble. Just hurt him. Just brought him far too close to death. Just-

Winry reached a hand out, cupping Ed’s cheek in it. “Ed,” she said, “you’ll be a wonderful father. You just...have to get out of your own head, sometimes, okay?”

Ed rested a hand over hers, and murmured a gentle, “Okay.”

Theo didn’t need to remember this to tell that Ed didn’t really believe her. 

  
  
  
  


Ed stared at the ceiling of the room he shared with Al, grinding his teeth as he tried not to think about his leg. 

It  _ hurt.  _ Granny had done something to it, saying that it would help his nerves adjust to the port before they tried attaching a leg to it, but the activated nerves were in agony as a result. He’d lied when they’d asked, swore to Al it was totally fine, but now they were all asleep and he was  _ trembling  _ under the force of the pain. 

Outside their door, Ed heard footsteps.

_ Theo,  _ he thought. He’d heard the man at night a lot, both at the Hughes’ and since moving into the apartment. He seemed to have trouble sleeping, because he would only ever shut himself in his room for a few hours a day, but this was something notable even for him. Theo had run some unknown errand after dinner, coming in super late, and he’d only been in bed for a couple of hours, tops. Short enough a time that Ed hadn’t given in to the tremor under his skin and fallen asleep, anyway. 

Investigation seemed more interesting an option than lying in bed, anyway, and Ed shifted, forcing himself up onto his leg, bracing himself with both hands on the edge of the bed. One tiny shuffle after another, he passed himself along to the nightstand, then propped himself against the wall, slinking his way clumsily toward where Al had put his wheelchair. 

Granny had brought him a new one, after he’d complained to her over the phone about the original. Instead of having straight wheels and stuck-out handles, making it next to impossible to get anywhere without a person pushing him, this one’s wheels were larger and angled, so that he could reach down and spin them himself. 

Al hated it, because it was actually pretty fast when he got going, and he was now able to successfully escape his brother’s guidance at will, free to bother Winry or get into Theo’s things or whatever misbehavior Al normally curtailed. 

Dropping down into it was only sort of a relief - while it was much easier to sit than to try and hobble across the room, the effort of keeping himself upright had been a temporary distraction from the aching port.

Determined not to linger on the pain, he wheeled himself to the door, spent a few minutes working out a way to open it without bumping the chair into anything and making a noise, and slipped out it, going to hunt down their older half-brother. 

He was, predictably, in the kitchen, papers scattered across the table. That was Theo’s typical place, always squinting down at doodled-out arrays and carefully coded notes, working on his alchemy theories. 

Ed was about to call out, catching his attention, when he found himself meeting Theo’s eyes.

“It’s late,” Theo said, watching him closely. After a second of silence, a wry smile curled at his lips, and he murmured, “Hurts, doesn’t it?”

“What?” Ed asked, mouth going dry. “I-...”

Theo shifted in the chair, stretching out his own leg, tapping the knee. “I’ve got one, too, remember? I know they hurt.” 

Ed’s shoulders slumped. “Does it always…?”

“No,” Theo said. “The nerves are trying to accommodate something that’s not there. It’s like a phantom pain, amplified a few times by the pieces of steel attached to it. Once it adjusts, and a leg is attached, it gets better. Eventually, you get used to it, and it doesn’t hurt at all.” He hesitated, then gave a sardonic grin. “Unless you’re like me and treat it rough all the time. Damaged automail can hurt like hell, too.” 

“But it works like a normal leg?” Ed asked. “It won’t feel any different?” 

Theo propped an elbow up on the table, dropping his chin down on the hand of it, eyeing Ed carefully. “It's...different,” he said, slowly. “There’s no skin, no nerves on the surface or anything, so you can’t really feel stuff touching it. The inside feels like it’s your own leg, but it’s....It’s kind of like you’re wearing a really heavy boot. It can get sore, you can feel a little bit of pressure or temperature, but it’s muted.” 

To Ed’s surprise, Theo brought his foot up onto the chair with him, pulling off the sock covering it and hiking up the leg of his pajama pants. 

“I can feel if something gets in one of these,” he said, brushing fingertips over the vents and seems of the foot. “But I can’t feel my fingers right now. I can’t even tell if my hand is warm - if I stuck my foot in a fire, it’d feel  _ kinda  _ warm, probably. I’ve only felt it cold once, and that’s because I had it sunk to the knee in snow, which...Really wasn’t good for it.” He tapped the base of the port. This part is the most sensitive, because there’s still flesh under it, so it’s got two sets of nerves working together. Most of the trouble you’ll ever have with the leg is in this. Fair warning, bad weather is a  _ bitch  _ to get through with one of these. You know how old men complain about their knees when it rains? They’re not complaining for nothing. Automail stiffens up quick.” 

Ed frowned. “You still have metal in your shoulder,” he recalled. “Does that-...?”

“Oh, yeah,” Theo  _ laughed,  _ even though Ed didn’t think anything about it was particularly funny. “Yeah, that still gives me trouble, sometimes. It’s less bad, though...more like I just slept on it wrong, and it’s a little sore, instead of full on trying to lock up on me.”

“Automail does that?”

Theo shook his head. “Not usually,” he said. “I’ve been through some  _ really _ bad weather over the years, but a normal rainy day is just...sort of like the stiff feeling you get when you need to crack your back.”

Ed snorted. “You’re old.”

Theo made an offended noise. “I’m not even thirty!” he defended. “Honestly, it’s not my fault my body’s a mess!” After a moment, he deflated. “Or, it  _ is,  _ but...I’m not  _ old.”  _

“You’re older than that military guy, aren’t you?” Ed asked, curious. The Colonel looked sort of young for a military man, not at all the old soldier Ed had expected him to be, and if Theo wasn’t older, he was at least more worn down. 

Theo blinked, staring at Ed in stunned silence. “I….” He seemed baffled by the question. “I  _ am,  _ aren’t I?”

“Uh,” Ed muttered, unsure what to make of the reaction. “I think so?” 

“God, that’s weird,” Theo breathed, slumping back in his chair. “Twelve year old me would be so damn pleased with himself if-...” He broke off, looked to Ed, and - once again - gave an inexplicable chuckle. 

“What is it?” Ed asked. 

“Nothing, nothing,” Theo said, and dropping the fabric of his pant leg and pulling the sock back on, before getting to his feet. “Come on. I’ve got a few tricks for helping cool the port down when it’s acting up - let’s see if we can’t get it calm enough to let you sleep, yeah?”

Ed squinted after Theo as the man walked away, before - slightly hesitantly - rolling to follow him.

Theo was a weird guy...but he was kind, and didn’t treat Ed or Al like some stupid kids. 

Ed would need to figure out what the things weighing on the man were, eventually - Theo helping him with his port was one more favor to the list, and some day, he wanted to pay those back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh, theo....you either die the baby twink or live long enough to see yourself become the chickenhawk


	27. Chapter 27

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The crackling of the flames sounded almost like a sickening applause, congratulating him on a decisive victory. Decisive because his opponents were only mostly armed, were poorly organized and defended, were starving and angry and desperate above all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> let's stop being mean to theo for a minute and be mean to...(checks notes) everyone else?

The world was burning.

Flames rose in walls around him, swallowing everything, obscuring the horizon line enough that he would not see anything even  _ if  _ he were able to force his eyes upward, outward, through the scorching heat and blazing light. 

The crackling of the flames sounded almost like a sickening applause, congratulating him on a decisive victory. Decisive because his opponents were only mostly armed, were poorly organized and defended, were starving and angry and desperate above all. 

“Survivor!”

The shout from behind him spread through the line of soldiers at his back, a hundred rifles clicking as each and every one took aim. 

“Hold!” Roy called, raising a hand in signal. 

The figure approaching was not an Ishvalan. Their skin was more a heavy tan than earthy brown, and their hair was golden, not white. 

“Identify yourself,” Roy ordered. “Proceed and they  _ will  _ shoot.”

“You killed them.”

Roy faltered. The figure stopped, suddenly less than a yard from him, his harsh glare revealing eyes of the same molten gold the rest of him seemed cast from. 

“All the blood,” Theo said. “A whole city in ashes.”

“I had to,” Roy said, defending himself on automatic, not sure which of them he was trying to convince. 

“You didn’t,” Theo practically spat. “All this death is a power play.”

“For things to get better-...!”

“Equivalent exchange,” Theo continued, raising his voice. “What have you bought with this death?”

He heard whispering behind him, around him, closing in as it rose in waves.  _ Murderer. Monster. Sick. _

Then, another wave, mixing in with the first, swirling together into a flood.  _ Savior. Soldier. Hero. _

“The future,” Roy said. “We bought-...”

“The end,” Theo said. 

There were figures behind him, now. Two of them, one to either side, each with ghostly, indistinct features. All he could make out were broad-shouldered, towering forms, with Theo’s same golden hair falling around obscured faces. 

“You’re a puppet,” Theo said. 

The ground between them began to glow red. Roy looked down, alarmed, and watched as a crack spread through the earth between them. 

_ “They’ve already started,”  _ the echo of Theo’s voice filled the air, booming in from all directions, as though speaking from the sky.  _ “It’s a circle. It’s an array.” _

The crack spread in a curve, splitting along a loop, forming a perfect circle as it met back to itself. The second it was complete, the ground fractured again, in several places along the length of the line, and those began to spread as well. Over and over, the ground cracked and parted, a spider’s web weaving through the desert. 

When it was done, Roy was staring down at an array. When he tried to focus on the symbols, the shapes, everything seemed to be blurry or indistinct, just like the faces that flanked Theo. Still, with the certainty one only achieves in dreams, he knew what it was.

This was the array Theo had warned him about. This was the array for the Philosopher’s Stone. 

Movement caught his eye, and he looked up to see Theo stick a hand out, a hand coated in blood, and smear the red across one of the outer points of the array. To his either side, the figures with him did the same with the bordering points. 

Roy looked down at the point right in front of his feet, and saw wind swirling there, creating a perfect pile of ashes blown from the carnage around them. 

As he watched, the pile settled, then shifted, starting to sink into the cracked ground around it, which in turn folded in on itself like a sinkhole, leaving a spreading crater where it had been. 

The hole seemed to grow, spreading ever wider, until it filled all of Roy’s vision, the ground and  the crowds and the spectres and  _ Theo  _ all gone, leaving him only with this: the sphere with a slit  through the middle, slowly parting to reveal a gigantic eye.

Laughter filled his ears, a thousand voices all in perfect sync, echoing around as if he stood in a metal room. The silver rings that made up the eye’s iris seemed to pierce through him, freezing him to his core. 

The voices cackled something to him, the sounds turning to static in his ears, as black extended from the sides of the eye, reaching out to engulf him, drowning him in the dark.

  
  
  


Roy sat straight up in bed, heart hammering, though the details of his nightmare were already growing foggy. Ishval, always Ishval, but new things this time - namely, Theo’s heavy scorn on him. 

It figured that what Pinako had told him about Theo’s past would come back to haunt him sooner or later. Why the man said nothing about the kind of person Roy was, he couldn’t fathom. Nor could he understand why Theo would trust  _ him  _ with his wild conspiracy theory. 

He tried to remember the rest of the dream - the men who’d hovered at Theo’s sides, the array, the echoing laughter - but none of it made any sense to him. 

A glance at the clock told him it was barely past midnight, and so he put it out of his mind and laid back down, praying he’d manage to get at least  _ some  _ sleep before work. 

He’d figure out the weird dream during daylight.

  
  
  


“Hot chocolate.”

Ed blinked as a mug was held in front of his face. “....What?”

“Keeps you from freezing while that thing,” Theo gestured to the ice pack on Ed’s propped-up leg, “does its work.” 

Ed eyed the cup suspiciously. “Does that have-...”

“Hot water, no milk,” Theo assured him. 

Ed looked up, surprised. “You knew I don’t like milk?” 

“Think it came up while we were grocery shopping,” Theo said. His shoulders seemed to relax a fraction as Ed finally accepted his cup, and continued, “It’s easy to remember. I can’t stand the shit either.” 

“Huh.” Ed stared down into the mug, thoughts running wild. Was the similarity genetic? Was something as simple as his taste in food owed in part to his father? 

Annoyed by the idea, he looked aside, directing his attention to the table.

“What are these?” he asked, reaching a hand out to the closest sketched array.

“Careful!”

Ed yanked his hand back, mouth open, a defense on his tongue already, because he wasn’t a  _ kid,  _ he wouldn’t  _ ruin  _ anything-...

But Theo didn’t even pause, coming up to look over his shoulder, not making any more to remove the paper from Ed’s reach, and explained, “I was working on some alchemic trap designs, and I don’t  _ think  _ any are active, but it’s way too early in the morning to take my word for it.” 

“Oh,” Ed murmured, looking at the array in front of him. Then, “...Traps?” 

“Human bodies have energy in them,” Theo said. “I learned about it from a friend, from Xing. Up there they train their senses to be able to read that energy, to feel it, and I’ve tried to drag the theory into alchemy a couple of times. I think I finally got a good grasp on it with the seeking array, though, so I’m trying to reverse engineer it, find some way to make an array backwards - alchemic energy that affects human energy, instead of the other way around.” 

He reached out, tapping a paper. “This was sort of a cheating way of doing it...alchemic alarm system, using my distance array. A barrier array, where once it’s broken, it activates the second array, which activates the  _ distance  _ array, which produces something to let me know a secure area’s been breached.” 

“Couldn’t you just do that to activate some kind of attack?” 

“Oh, yeah,” Theo said. “I’ve made traps like that before. This is just-...”

He stopped.

Ed looked up to him, frowning. “Just..?”

“I’m gonna have to go to work eventually,” Theo said. “Mustang’ll have me taking trips left and right. I wanna be sure that I know if anything happens while I’m not around.”

“In case the people you mentioned come after us?” 

“Yeah,” Theo said. “Exactly. I wouldn’t put it past them to find a way to get you two pinned down until they can use you.” 

Ed looked back at the array. “...Can I help?” 

Ed expected Theo to snort, to dismiss him outright, to do the normal adult thing of shrugging him off and claiming he was too young to be involved in whatever it was he was doing.

Instead, Theo shrugged, said, “Probably,” and slid one of their dad’s journals toward him. “See if you can puzzle out what the hell dad was trying to say at that marked page - I’ve translated it three times and each one’s come out different. Way too early in the morning for his damn code.”

  
  
  
  


“Bun today,” Breda observed, as the door to Mustang’s office swung shut behind Theo. 

Havoc leaned around the divider Hawkeye had stuck between them. “How high?”

“Low,” Breda said, gesturing to his neck. “Loose, kind of messy.”

“I don’t even want to know,” Falman said, looking between them warily. 

“His hair is ridiculous,” Havoc said. “I swear it gets longer every fucking day.” 

“That’s what hair tends to do, yes,” Falman replied. 

Havoc balled up a piece of paper and threw it at him, scowling as Falman batted it harmlessly away. “We’re seeing how long he can get away with it before one of the brass gets a stick up their ass about uniform regulations.”

“There’s no rule against long hair,” Fuery defended. “He hasn’t done anything wrong.” 

“Wrong,” Breda said. “You can’t wear anything distracting.”

Falman raised an eyebrow. 

“Look at him!” Havoc defended, waving a hand wildly toward the door. “He’s the very definition of distracting!” 

“I don’t think Mustang is your main problem getting a girlfriend, Havoc.”

Havoc flipped him off. 

“Look,” Breda said. “It doesn’t matter if he  _ actually  _ did anything wrong. It only matters what one person thinks.”

“Mustang thinks this guy is a godsend.”

“Not Mustang,” Breda said, before jerking his head toward the empty spot at their table, which Hawkeye had vacated to go fetch another round of forms for them to filter through. 

“She doesn’t like him,” Falman agreed, “but she’s not going to make up regulations to get rid of him.” 

“She’s not gonna do  _ anything _ to get rid of him,” Havoc insisted. “Mustang likes him! Hawkeye isn’t going to argue with him outright like that. She’s got  _ us _ all in line, but she does still listen to him.” 

“For good reason!” Fuery said. “I don’t understand what your problem with Major Hohenheim is.” 

“Problem?”

Havoc and Breda both jumped, spinning around to see Theo, newly emerged from Mustang’s office, with an arm full of papers and a delicate golden eyebrow raised in their direction. 

“No problem!” Breda said, recovering first. 

“Not ours, anyway,” Havoc added, his self-preservation just a bit lower than Breda’s. “Hawkeye doesn’t like you too much.” 

Theo raised his arms, gesturing with the stack of papers within them. “I’ve noticed,” he said, tone dry. “I’ll be more useful when there’s actual work for me, but there’s an old woman holding my apartment hostage at the moment, so I can’t go out on any actual jobs.” 

“A-...what?” 

“Automail mechanic,” Theo said, looking down to Havoc. “You met Ed - she’s working on his port.” 

“Oh, cool,” Havoc said. “He getting a leg soon?”

“Nah,” Theo said. “It’ll be a few months before the nerves are ready for that. He’s got a new chair, though, so he can get around by himself a little easier. Port hurts like a bitch, but it’s automail. It’s  _ gonna _ hurt. He’s tough.” 

“You sound like a proud dad,” Havoc pointed out.

Confusingly, Theo’s face dropped to blank in an instant. “Do I?”

“I...uh…?”

“I need to take these,” Theo said, turning toward the door, staging a hasty retreat. “Get it over with.”

The door closed behind him, leaving a long moment of awkward, confused silence between the men in it.

Then, Havoc rounded on Breda, and scolded, “That’s a  _ chignon _ , dumbass, not a _bun_.” 

Falman raised his eyes to the ceiling, praying for the moment Hawkeye would return and bless the room with silence again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> theo finds out his friends dont like him in this timeline and that he's finally being a decent parent to the kid who isn't even his and deals with that massive emotional turmoil whilst his coworkers argue over updo semantics


End file.
